Love for the Loveless
by chilledcactus
Summary: Percy has saved the world once more, from the giants this time. He hopes he can finally get a happy ending, however he is soon betrayed by some of the gods he helped save. Now he is forced to leave camp to protect his friends. Full summary inside.
1. Chapter 1

**Love for the loveless**

**First, this is NOT a sequel to my first story.**

**Well, this is my second story, although I'm not sure what that has to do with this story, but hopefully you guys enjoy this one. A short summary for those who wish it.**

After the war with the giants is ended, Percy thinks his life will finally be calm and he might get the happy ending he has always dreamed of. Instead, several of the gods that he helped saved, twice, betray him and tear apart his world. In order to protect his friends and those he cares about, he runs away from Camp Halfblood, hoping that by distancing himself, they can remain safe. After several months on his own, he has been training his powers and growing stronger along with his loneliness. He doesn't want to be found, but the hunt is pursing him to get answers. Eventually, he slips up and is found by Thalia who then takes him to Lady Artemis. Can the hunt provide a new home for Percy that is safe from those who wish him to suffer?

**Yup, well, hopefully that is a good enough summary for you guys, if you want to know about this story, then read it. **

**Like I did with my last story, I will try to update as much as possible. At least once a week and probably more than that. If for some reason I won't be able to update for an extended period of time, I will tell you first so that you don't have to freak out.**

**This is not a Percabeth story, although hopefully I did a decent job of breaking that relationship without using the typical clichés that get annoying.**

**Also, if you think Athena is a wonderful goddess and all that, you might not like this story. I am not a fan of hers, and that will probably show before long.**

**Now, to the actual story that you want to read.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own PJO or any of the other books.**

Athena POV

I was not in a good mood. I had warned the sea spawn multiple times to stay away from my daughter, but he never listened. Now, my daughter seemed to believe that she was in love with him as well. I couldn't stand the thought. It made me sick. The biggest problem was that since he was the savior of us gods, there really wasn't anything I could do about it. If he had been a normal demigod, I could have had an unfortunate accident happen that would kill him, but if I did that to him now, many of the gods would hate me, and a war might break out that wasn't in my favor. I needed a plan.

It was several months after the war with the giants when my plan finally came to me. If I could get the sea spawn away from my daughter long enough, I could get her to fall in love with a different guy, one that I approved of. I would need help with my plan, but I could see the pieces coming together in my mind. Yes, everything would work out the way I wanted it to.

Percy POV

It had been several months since the war against the giants and Gaia, and things had finally calmed down. It had taken a little time for Annabeth to get over the fact that I had been missing for eight months, but now that she had, our relationship was stronger than ever. Rachel had not produced another great prophecy, so I was hoping that with the troubles behind me, I could settle down and have a calmer life without the super powerful beings trying to kill my friends and me. The only thing that really bugged me was that I knew Athena still didn't approve of me because my father is Poseidon. It irritated me, but I figured if I continued to do my best to show respect for her and not anger her, eventually she would come around and accept me.

That night, as I was about to enter my cabin, I felt a presence appear behind me. I turned around and found myself face to face with Athena. I was surprised that she was here, but remembering that I wanted her to like me, I quickly bowed and showed her respect. I was going to ask her why she was here, but I decided that it might be rude if I spoke first, so I waited for her.

She smiled at me and said, "Perseus, as you know, I do not approve of your relationship with my daughter. However, I have decided I will give you a chance. If you are willing to prove yourself, that is."

She smiled at me again, but I could see the idea's spinning around her mind if I looked at her eyes. Now, I wanted to yell at her, and explain to her everything I have ever done for Annabeth, but I knew that would just make her angry and it wouldn't change anything. She was giving me a chance to do something that would get her to accept me; I had to take this opportunity. I smiled at her, "Lady Athena, I am willing to do whatever it takes to prove myself worthy of your daughter. Just tell me what you need me to do, and I will do it."

She grinned at me, "Okay Perseus, tomorrow night at 10:00, be at the top of Halfblood Hill by the pine tree. You will leave then to complete the tasks I require. You will probably be gone for several months."

I gaped at her. I mean _several months?_ I didn't want to be gone that long, Annabeth hadn't done to well when I had been kidnapped for eight months, but I didn't have much of a choice. I would tell Annabeth why I was going to be gone and hope that she was okay with it. I needed to get Athena's approval, it would make things so much easier. "All right, Athena, I will be there."

"Good. For now though, sleep well Perseus, and be prepared come tomorrow evening, for the challenges won't be easy." After she said that, she teleported away, leaving me in front of my cabin wondering what exactly she had in store for me. I walked into my cabin, lay down on my bunk, and went to sleep.

In my dream I was in a forest. I had my sword drawn and I could see a large group of monsters just beyond the trees. Right before they attacked me though, I lowered my sword and didn't defend myself. I woke up as the hellhounds claws tore away my skin.

It was early morning and I tried to make sense of my dream. Why would I just give up? What was going on? That wasn't like me at all. I was perplexed by this dream, but I didn't want to tell anyone about it. The dream only involved me, it was my problem to deal with, no one else needed to know.

That morning, after breakfast, I puled Annabeth aside and told about my meeting with her mother the night before. She looked at me and I could see annoyance and slight anger on her face. I hoped the anger wasn't at me, but I wasn't sure. For several minutes she just glared at me.

Finally she let out a sigh, "My mother can be too stubborn for her own good. I really don't want you to leave again, but I do understand that our relationship would be a lot easier without my mother constantly getting in the way. You had better complete her trials as fast as you can though, and get back to me quickly. I wouldn't be able to take it if you were just, gone again."

I could see she was close to tears at the idea of me disappearing again, so I wrapped her in a hug and tried soothing her. "Don't worry Annabeth. I won't be gone long. Your mother said it would take several months, which makes me think I would be gone for eight months, but probably only three or four. I will get back as quickly as I can. I promise. I will do these tasks for Athena because I love you and want to be with you. Nothing will stop me from returning to you."

She smiled at me, "I know you will Seaweed Brain. I know. Since you are leaving tonight though, how about we skip our classes and just hang out together?"

I smiled down at her, "Of course. That sounds like a great plan, Wise Girl."

We spent the rest of the day hanging out at the beach and walking around camp. It was peaceful and relaxing, and I couldn't wait to get back from my quest and be able to be truly happy with Annabeth without her mother getting in the way. That night after campfire, as everyone went back to their cabins, I walked up Halfblood Hill and waited next to Peleus for Athena to show up and send me to my first challenge.

**This is the first chapter. It is mostly an introduction to the story. The rest of the chapters will be longer than this one, probably closer to 4000 words as opposed to the 1500 words that this one is.**

**For now, if you want to tell me what you think of my story, good or bad, do so in a review or PM. I would prefer it if no one flames me, but if you do, I will get over it. I will say that polite criticism is more likely to get me to listen to you suggestion though. In the future, you can also tell me POV's that you want to see, but for the beginning of the story, I already have things mostly planned out.**

**At first, I had not planned on trying to write two stories simultaneously, but I think it should work out so that when I am not motivated to work on one of them, I will work on the other. You will probably see 2-4 updates of each story every week. **

**Anyways, thanks for reading my story and providing me with your feedback.**


	2. Chapter 2

**As promised, this chapter will be longer than the previous one.**

**I know that some of you think Athena isn't acting the way you think she would so I suppose I could call her, what's the term, OOC? Or something like that. Personally, I don't really know, I kind of don't really like her, so this story will make her out to be a not so good goddess. If you have a problem with that, I'm sorry but I won't change that. At least not for this story.**

**Thank you to the people who reviewed and thanks to the people who are spending their time reading my story.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own PJO or the related works.**

Percy POV

I waited by the tree for several minutes. Precisely at 10:00, a bright light appeared and then died down. I turned my head and saw Athena standing next to me.

She looked at me and said, "Good evening Perseus. I assume you would like to know your first challenge. Well, first, you must walk all the way to the Garden of the Hesperides. You may not use any form of transportation other than your own body. Once you get to the garden, I will give you your second task. Good luck." With that, she disappeared in another flash of light.

I sighed, this was going to be a long walk. Almost 3000 miles if what Annabeth taught me is correct, which I'm sure it was. If I walked 30 miles a day, it would take me a little over three months to get there. I wanted to go faster than that, so I decided I would try to go faster that that. I would walk from sunup till sundown. Maybe longer if I had the energy. The biggest problem was going to be the monsters, since I was a son of Poseidon, they would be attracted to me from miles away. I hoped I was strong enough to fend them all off.

After Athena left, I walked about a mile into the forest and set up camp for myself. I woke up to the sun shining down in my face. Sighing, I got up and packed everything up. I had a small breakfast and then headed out.

At first, I could barely manage to hike for ten hours a day, but after a week or so, I began hiking for more than twelve hours each day. Most days, monsters didn't find me, but occasionally they would. I fought off several hellhounds and dracaena, as well as various others on occasion. Nothing ever showed up that I couldn't handle.

By the end of two weeks, I was easily hiking for 14 hours a day. To get to my destination faster, I began running every other hour. Whenever I came across a town, I would stock up on freeze-dried food and energy bars. I lived on the stuff for my entire journey. It got pretty nasty, but it held the nutrients I needed and provided me with energy.

About a month and a half into my journey, I was running for over ten hours every day and gaining nearly 100 miles. I looked up and saw the ocean. I had made it to the west coast. I stepped into the ocean to get my bearings, and realized I needed to travel south a couple hundred miles to reach San Francisco. I turned south and continued running.

Several days later, I made it. I remembered that you could only enter the garden at sunset, so when I reached my destination a little after noon, I lay down and relaxed for the first time in a long time. I was in the best shape of my life, the trek had done wonders for my endurance and strength. Running 100 miles a day with 40 pounds on your back really helps to get you in shape. I had also gotten a lot better at monster fighting.

I never knew when they would attack me, so I was always on guard and was capable of fighting them when I was exhausted from a long days run, I could fight them when I was woken up at two in the morning, and I could fight them at any other time of the day. Since I had been moving so quickly, the monsters never got a chance to form large groups and attack me. Unfortunately, relaxing by the Garden of the Hesperides for several hours did give them a chance to gang up on me.

I looked up from where I was lying down and saw a horde of hellhounds, 20 of them at least, along with several laistygonians and maybe 15 dracaena. I figured every monster in San Fran had smelled me run through the town and they had all gathered here while I resting to ambush me. I gave a sigh of annoyance and stood up, uncapping Riptide while I did so.

I turned to face the monsters when I realized I was surrounded. I looked and saw a massive tree not far away, I figured if I could get to the tree and put my back to it, the monsters would have to attack me head on. I charged through the monsters, cutting down several of them, and reached the tree.

For the next twenty minutes, I stayed there, dodging monsters and swinging Riptide at them. By the time I finally dispatched the last one, I was exhausted. I didn't have the mark of Achilles anymore, so I had several guts and gashes on my arms, legs, and sides. I was breathing heavily, but all the monsters had been vaporized. I pulled out my ambrosia and realized it was almost all gone. I didn't want to be without any godly healing food, but I couldn't continue if I was as beat up as I was, so I ate the last of it and felt my wounds close up.

There was still about three hours until I could enter the garden, but I didn't want to relax and let my guard down again, so I spent the time walking around the general area, patrolling for monsters. No more showed up, but I never relaxed.

Finally, sunset came and I could enter the garden. I could feel the power of the mist around the garden and concentrated my hardest on entering, as I walked through, I caught site of the garden I had seen only once before. It was just as beautiful as the last time I had come, although I was a little lonelier this time since I had no friends with me.

As soon as I came into view of the tree, I heard a voice next to me speak, "You have nerve to come back here, after you imprisoned our father once again. This time, you won't get through so easily."

I turned my head and saw the four Hesperides. It had been several years since I had seen them, and it seemed they still didn't have any respect for me. Oh well, I just needed to wait for Athena to give me my next test.

As soon as I had thought that thought, I saw a flash of light and found Athena right in front of me. She looked at me and smiled, "Good job, Perseus, you have completed the first part of your test. The next part is even harder." She then grabbed my shoulder and teleported me in front of Atlas, who was holding the sky and began cursing at me as soon as he saw me.

I turned to Athena, "What is my next task, and why did you bring me up here?"

She looked at me and I saw a dangerous glint in her eye, I knew that I was in for some serious trouble. "Why, your next task is to hold up the sky again. For a month."

For several seconds I was too stunned to speak. My jaw was on the ground and I wasn't sure if I had heard her right, "Wait, you want me to hold up the sky. For a month. What about Atlas? And what if I fail and the sky touches the Earth and flattens half of California? Isn't this a little dangerous?"

Athena just smiled at me, "Well, if you want to avoid destroying California, I advise you not to fail. As for Atlas here, we will chain him before we free him, and then leave him chained to the ground right in front of you so he can taunt you and laugh at you the whole time. There will be no chance for him to escape as I have gathered the help of several other gods to help with the moving of him."

I gulped. This was going to be a difficult task to complete. "Okay, I suppose that works, but what about food and water to keep me alive?"

Athena looked at me funny, "You will need none of that. All the energy you will need to survive must come from inside of you. As long as you are holding the sky, you will not need any form of sustenance."

When she finished talking, Hephaestus and Apollo both appeared in the clearing. I watched as the three chained Atlas with special chains and prepared to move him. Athena looked at me, "Come here Perseus and take the sky. Once you have taken it, you must survive for an entire month before I will free you. Good luck."

I really didn't want to do this, but I knew if I was to get Athena to approve of me, I had no choice but to do this. With thoughts of my love for Annabeth on my mind, I knelt down under the sky and took the burden. Immediately, I felt the pain I knew I would feel. It burned and felt like I was being crushed. I could barely breathe under the pressure and I was finding it more and more difficult to remain kneeling. I felt like I wanted to be pushed into the ground, be crushed and destroyed by the massive weight on my shoulders.

I knew though, that I couldn't do that. If I gave into the weight of the sky and allowed it to control me, I would lose and terrible things would happen. I would end up dead and my friends and family would all be saddened. They would then feel pain because I had failed to complete my task. Annabeth would have it the worst. So I forced myself to stay strong and bear the burden.

After a while, I finally managed to regain enough composure to take in my surroundings. Atlas was chained to the ground, beaten and bloodied. He was facing me and smirking at me. "Good luck punk. There is no way you are going to be able to survive this for a month. You saw Artemis after she had held the sky for a week and she could barely lift it at that point. You are just a mortal, if you think you will make it a month, you are an idiot. However, I must thank you for giving me a break from my burden."

I looked around and saw that all the gods had gone back to Olympus or wherever else the gods go. I tried to take in my surroundings more, but it was incredibly hard to concentrate on anything except the massive pain I was feeling from the sky on my shoulders. It felt like my body was compressing, little by little, and before long, I would just be a flattened demigod with the sky above me. The pain was immense, and the more I tried to focus on my surroundings, the more I felt like I was dying.

I realized that I needed to focus on the sky and keeping it up, otherwise I would fall. In order to gather the strength to lift the sky, I needed to be motivated by something. What kept me motivated was the simple and true love that I felt for Annabeth and my need to make her happy. That was all that mattered to me, and it helped me to keep the sky lifted.

It was hard to tell the passage of time. I could never concentrate on the passing of days, I could tell if it was day or night, but not how many days it had been. I could also feel myself weakening. The sky was crushing more than just my physical body; it was crushing my resolve as well. As the time passed, my energy was slowly running out. No matter how hard I tried to keep the sky lifted, it was pushing against me even harder, forcing me to bow down. Eventually I realized that I was on my hands and knees, supporting the sky with my back. I could feel my stomach getting closer to the ground.

It didn't help having Atlas and the Hesperides laughing at me and mocking me the whole time. I tried not to pay attention to what they were saying, but their constant chatter was distracting me from my focus, making it harder to keep the sky aloft. I tried to ask them how long I had been holding the sky for, but I didn't think I could trust their answers. Sometimes they told me it had been months, or even years, while other times I was told it had only been a few days.

The pain was excruciating and tore through my whole body. Holding the sky for several minutes so that Artemis could trap Atlas had been almost impossibly and incredibly painful, but holding the sky for a seemingly endless amount of time was way harder. The constant pain only grew, never getting a chance to be relieved. By the end, I couldn't even think.

Finally, the day came where I knew I couldn't hold the sky for any longer. I was being pushed into the ground and in mere minutes, the sky would meet the Earth and a massive explosion would ensue. I tried my absolute hardest to lift the sky harder, but I could no longer withstand the pain in my body and the strain on my mental self. Right as the sky was going to touch the Earth though, I felt it lifted off of my back.

I had never felt such relief before. All my pain that I had endured for an endless time was slowly dissipating. I could feel the strain on all of my muscles as well as on my mind, but it was no longer growing, instead I could feel it slowly being relieved. At first, I couldn't move my body, I felt something drag me away from my previous position. I looked up and saw Athena looking down at me. I couldn't tell whether I had passed her test or if I had failed. She just looked at me with her calculating grey eyes.

After several minutes, I found myself able to move again. I looked around and saw that Atlas was once more under the sky and seemed to be glaring at empty space. I figured the gods who had put him back there had probably been there before taking their leave. He then looked over at me and said, "Congratulations Jackson. It seems you are stronger than I gave you credit for. I don't know why you were being forced to hold the sky, but you actually managed to do it successfully and gave me a longer break than expected. I still don't like you though, and if I ever get free, since you seem to be quite skilled at holding my burden, I might just give it to you."

Before Atlas could say anymore, she grabbed my arm and teleported us off of the mountain and back onto the road next to the garden. She looked at me and said, "Your final test is now. You have gained much strength from these last two tests, so now to truly test you, I have quadrupled your demigod scent. Any monster within 100 miles of you should be able to find you easily. You are to return to camp on foot. If you can make it to the base of Halfblood Hill, I will give you my blessing to date and court my daughter. If you fail, you die. Good luck." With that, she disappeared in a flash of golden light and left me alone on a road in California. Every monster within a hundred miles would be smelling me out and trying to make me its lunch. I groaned, this was going to be nearly impossible. I could travel maybe 100 miles a day if I ran, that meant that I wouldn't be able to outrun the monsters and they would be able to gang up on me and attack me in larger groups.

I groaned again, but this time I started running east. The faster I moved and the quicker I moved out, the safer I would be. The great think about being a son of Poseidon is that even though I was still exhausted from holding the sky, as soon as I walked through a river I could feel my energy return to me. It helped me to recover quicker and pick up my pace. I knew that as long as I was running, not many monsters would attack me. They would wait for me to stop and rest for a little but so they could sneak up and try to catch me by surprise.

For the most part, my assumptions about when I would be attacked held true. I soon found I would never be able to sleep through the night, so I changed my sleep schedule. I would rest for four hours at a time and then move for eight hours. I was almost always tired, but I found I could get a little more rest this way. My original trip west combined with holding the sky for such a long time had made me a lot stronger and faster. I was having almost no trouble destroying the monsters that attacked me. Every now and then I would get a cut or a scrape, but I managed to avoid getting any major injuries.

I was also a little angry with Athena. She had told me I was going to hold the sky for one month, but at the first store I stopped at for supplies, I found that I had held the sky for nearly two months. I made it a point to ask her about that the next time I saw her. I knew there was nothing I could do about it, but I wanted to know why she had lied to me. Also, it made me mad that she had kept me away from Annabeth for longer than I had wanted to be away. I made my way back to camp as quickly as I could, and about a month after I had been relieved of the sky, I reached New York. I was excited to be home and really wanted to check in with my family, but I knew I couldn't; not as long as I was attracting every monster within 100 miles anyways. Instead, I settled for making my way to camp. I was maybe a mile away from Halfblood Hill when the monsters came out.

The size of the group was huge; easily the largest group I had come across during my journey east. Leading the group was my old friend the Minotaur. He never seemed to stay dead very long. Behind him were about 100 hellhounds, ten laistrygonians, and 20 dracaena. I wondered why those seemed to be the only monsters that had been attacking me, but didn't dwell on it for too long figuring it was nothing special.

I could see that off in the distance Peleus was trying to raise some kind of alarm about the group of monsters that had appeared so close to camp. I knew that I couldn't let other campers interfere. I had brought these monsters here so it was my job to destroy them. If I put other people at risk, then I was failing them all. I knew it was pretty stupid, but I had to destroy the monsters, so I charged at the Minotaur.

He met my sword strike with his massive axe. He clearly recognized me because I could see hate burning in his eyes. He was dressed in his armor once again, and seemed to be slightly stronger than the last time. He grunted at me and pushed me away. He tried swinging his axe at me, but I just sidestepped the blow and sliced upwards at him. He managed to step back away from it, but I still cut off the tip of his right horn.

The Minotaur let out an angry moo and swung his axe at me parallel to the ground. I ducked the swing and moved towards him. Then, in a single motion, I cut his axe's handle and slashed my sword through his armor and deep into his left side. He bellowed in pain and rage, but dissolved into dust none-the-less.

After he had been destroyed, the other monsters decided to try and kill me. I hacked and slashed my way through hellhounds and dracaena, destroying each one I came across. The problem was that there were so many of them. I could feel myself tiring. It had been an insane journey that had taken everything out of me. I had gained a lot of strength, but now that I was finally at the end, all of my weariness seemed to be catching up to me. I could see that several campers had appeared on the hill, but before they could charge down to help me, a flash illuminated the hill and the campers were help back. I figured it was Athena telling them that this was my quest and my trial. I needed to complete it alone without help. I was thankful to her for not allowing others to get involved in my problem.

I refocused my attention on the battle. I could tell I was getting cut up. Both of my arms ere dripping blood and my right side was on fire. I had a small pain in my left thigh, but I did my best to ignore it. Eventually I made my way to the laistrygonians and managed to cut them down. They were powerful monsters, but they were not a threat to me because they were so slow. It took them forever to do anything and even though I was weakened and worn out, I was still faster than they were. Once I had destroyed them, I was surrounded by a circle of about 15 hellhounds and 5 dracaena. I was also utterly exhausted. I could barely hold my sword and moving was getting harder by the second. I was also starting to get a little light-headed from blood loss.

If I had been at full strength, these monsters would have been no problem for me, but as it was, they nearly killed me. One of the hellhounds managed to bit my right leg, effectively immobilizing me. Even after I killed it, I couldn't put any weight on my leg. Then, a dracaena managed to stab my left arm with a spear. I vaporized her, but I could no longer use the arm. As I slashed through the final hellhound, I could feel my body finally give in to all the weariness and pain I had suffered. All the stress of the journey caught up to me and I felt myself collapsing.

The last thing I saw before passing out was Athena catching me and telling me that I had succeeded. I smiled as I fell unconscious because I now had her approval to date Annabeth. It had been a hellish struggle, but I had succeeded.

**Well, that was fun. Hopefully you liked it and I did a good job of writing it. At the very least I gave it my best shot.**

**The next chapter will conclude Percy's time at camp. Athena's plot will be revealed to you.**

**Thanks for all the reviews. I know that not everyone will like everything I do in this story and although I most likely won't change things because of one person, it is nice to hear what I could improve on so that in any other stories I write I can do a better job. It also nice when criticism is given in a polite manner. **

**If there is anything you want me to do differently or if you have suggestions for the future of the story or if you just want to tell me what you think, let me know in a review or PM. I do like hearing from you guys.**

**Anyways, thank you all for everything, enjoy yourselves and live happy lives.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Well, this is chapter 3.**

**I was hoping to publish this sooner since I already had it planned out, but once I started writing it, I realized I had no clue how best to write out my ideas, so it took a little bit longer than I had hoped to type this chapter.**

**Something weird happened with the second chapter and it didn't appear on FanFiction for almost 10 hours after I posted it. I'm, not sure why, but it was weird.**

**Thanks for the reviews and such and enjoy this chapter, it will not be fun for Percy, but if you enjoy his emotional pain, you shall enjoy this.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own PJO or the associated books.**

Percy POV

I never could remember my dreams from when I was unconscious, I just remember waking up and feeling that something was wrong. I opened my eyes and was immediately awake, I wasn't sure how long I had been out for, but after spending months needing to be able to wake up at a moments notice, the instant my eyes opened I was ready to attack.

I looked around, expecting some monster to be about to kill me in the middle of some forest somewhere. Then I remembered that I had finished my tests and had gained Athena's approval. I remembered that after defeating the last mass of monsters, I had passed out. I took in my surroundings and realized I was in the bighouse. I was in the infirmary area.

Before I could completely take in the room, someone was giving me a hug and bleating in happiness. "Perrrrrrrcy! You're awake! You have been out for three days and we were all worried about you."

I looked down at Grover and said, "Sorry G-man, didn't mean to have you all worried. I was just a little exhausted from my quest and it all seemed to catch up to me."

He smiled at me and I smiled back. "Well Percy, it's nice having you back again. You were gone for almost five months and you never contacted us once. We were all worried about you."

I smiled apologetically, "Sorry, I wasn't allowed to contact anyone while on my quest. I didn't want you guys to worry, but it had to be done. What about you though? Aren't you the Lord of the Wild now? Shouldn't you be doing your nature duties and stuff? How long have you ben here for?"

He grinned at me, "Well, I have been doing my duties quite a bit actually. Once I heard you were back though, I figured I could take a little break and go meet up with my best friend for the first time in five months."

I couldn't help but smile at that, "Well, thanks Grover. Now, how long am I stuck in here for? Can I leave whenever I want to? I want to go catch up with the rest of my friends as well. Also, how's Annabeth doing? I haven't seen here in forever and I really want to talk to her now."

Grover got a strange look on his face for a second, almost like he was scared of something, but it quickly went away and he was back to smiling at me. "You can leave whenever you feel better. You are the Savior of Olympus so no one dares to tell you what to do As long as you are feeling up to it, you can get out whenever you want. As for Annabeth, I would check the arena or the forges or her cabin. I haven't been around much lately, so I'm not sure how she is doing, but since no one has told me anything bad, I can only assume she is doing all right."

I smiled at Grover and climbed out of the bed I was in. I gave him a pat on the back and thanked him, "Thanks again for being here for me, now get back to your duties before you start getting in trouble." With that, I walked out of the room, through the bighouse, and out into the camp.

It was a nice day, maybe 80 degrees and sunny. There were a few clouds hanging around and there was a cool breeze blowing through. I looked around and could see campers going about doing their daily activities. Nothing seemed even remotely amiss, which seemed odd because normally demigod instincts were accurate and I had a sense that something was seriously amiss. I sighed, _first things first, _I though. I walked off to go find Annabeth, I wanted to tell her all about my mission and catch up with everything I had missed, I figured I could also ask her if there were any problems around camp I should know about, since I could feel something was wrong.

I headed over to the forges, since Grover said she might be there. I had no clue why she would be there, but Annabeth always had a reason for doing things and I had learned that if I needed to know, I would find out. Anyways, I got to the forge and found it mostly empty. There were a few Hephaestus kids there, forging weapons and building stuff, but no sign of Annabeth. I turned to leave but before I could, a familiar voice said, "Hey Percy, it's good seeing you again. I saw you fight off that small army the other day and was pretty impressed, I was going to go down and fry their butts off and help you, but Athena stopped me from it."

I turned around and saw Leo grinning at me. He always was a good guy to hand out with. He was reliable and good with his hands. He was also a decent fighter. During the Giant War, we had become pretty good friends, well, all seven of us prophecy kids had gotten pretty close, but Leo was always pestering me and hanging around me, so we grew closer. I smiled at him, "Thanks Leo. It's the thought that counts though. Also, I'm glad you didn't come down to help. That was part of my quest and I had to do it alone. Also, the monsters were only there because of me so I would have felt bad if someone else had gotten hurt because of them. Anyways, it is nice being back. Speaking of which, you wouldn't happen to know where Annabeth is would you?"

His smile disappeared for a second before reappearing and I wondered what he was thinking. He looked away from me and said, "Annabeth? Oh, I'm not really sure. I would check the Arena though, she likes to relieve stress by practicing there and testing new battle strategies and that kind of stuff. Hey, you think you could tell me about your quest and why those monsters were after you? I'm kinda curious about that."

I smiled at him, "Thanks Leo. If you want, I could tell you about my quest later. Right now though, I have to go find Annabeth." I then walked out of the forges and headed towards the arena.

As I walked, I ran into several of my friends who all wanted to know about why I had been gone so long and why there had been so many monsters after me so close to camp. I told them all I would tell them later and continued on my way to the arena. When I finally got there, there was a class going on and Annabeth was helping to teach it. It appeared as though she was working with some Hephaestus kid. They were currently sparring, so I decided to watch for a little bit.

As I watched, the Hephaestus kid, who was fighting with a sword, came charging at Annabeth who was using her knife. The guy swung his sword at her, but she just ducked under the blow, got close to him, and held her knife to his throat. With her free hand, she smacked his sword arm and he dropped his sword.

Since the little sparring match was over, I clapped and walked in, "That was a nice move Annabeth. Congratulations, it appears you have gotten even better with that knife of yours while I was gone." I smiled at her, but she appeared to be almost afraid of me.

After a few seconds of staring at me in surprise and worry, she regained her composure and forced a smile onto her face, "Hey Percy. Welcome back from your quest. It's good to see you up again, that battle you had at the camp boundaries was impressive. It seems you have gotten even better at fighting while you were gone as well."

I smiled at her, "Hey Annabeth, can we go somewhere and talk? I want to catch up with you after having been gone for so long."

She smiled at me, but for some reason it seemed forced. "Yeah, we should talk. In private. Come on." That's all she said before grabbing my arm and dragging me out of the arena and towards the forest.

I tried talking to her, but she wouldn't respond at all. I wasn't sure what was wrong, but my feeling that something was amiss was getting stronger by the second. The way Annabeth was acting had me worried, she never acted nervous or fidgety, but here she was, acting nervous and fidgety.

After we had gotten a ways into the forest and away from all the campers, she stopped and turned to face me. I was about to speak, but the look on her face made me stop. She appeared to be nervous and scared and looked like she was trying to find the words to express what she was feeling. After several minutes of silence, I managed to speak, "What is it Annabeth? What's wrong?"

She was fidgeting and wouldn't meet my eyes, but she took several deep breaths to try and calm herself before she started speaking, "Percy, please don't take this the wrong way," she began. She paused and looked at me, as if she expected me to explode at any moment.

My sense of dread was building; she couldn't be trying to say what I thought she was. There was no way that would be possible. But what else could have her looking so worried while everyone else was fine? I looked at her, begging her to just tell me.

She sighed and continued, "Percy, after you left for your quest, I was worried about you. My stress had me fighting a lot more, which caused me to go through a lot more training dummies and such. Due to this, I began hanging around the Hephaestus cabin a lot since I was constantly asking them for more special dummies. There was one guy in particular who I worked with. After the first couple of months, in order to stop having to make so many new dummies all the time, he began training with me and working as my partner."

I could feel my eyes starting to water. I had been afraid of where this story was leading and I was really hoping that it wouldn't end how I thought it would, but the more she said, the more likely I felt like I was right about how this was going to end. I had sat down on the ground across from Annabeth, and I was wishing I were standing, so I could just run away and not listen to this, but I knew I had to hear this story out to the end.

Meanwhile, Annabeth was continuing her story, "Each day, I began spending more time with him. At first, it was just traing in the arena, but then I was helping him in the forges as well, or he would help me with my architecture work. It was nice having someone else around who could understand the work I did and even provide meaningful input for it. About four months after you had left, I began to realize that I had growing feelings for him, and my feelings for you were going away. As soon as I realized this, I felt guilty because you were on a quest to prove your love for me, but there was nothing I could do. I couldn't contact you to tell you to just come back, and I couldn't force myself to love you anymore."

By this point, the tears were flowing down my face and I was shaking my head, trying to deny that this was happening to me. Why couldn't I ever have good things? I could never just have a happy ending. Why did the fates hate me so much? What had I ever done to deserve this pain I was feeling? All I had ever done was try to save everything I cared about, and for the most part I had succeeded. So why did I need to loose my true love?

Annabeth tried to smile apologetically at me, but it wasn't working. I could tell she was having a hard time telling me this. I knew that she didn't want to hurt me, that she was telling me this only because I needed to hear it sooner rather than later and that it would be best if I heard it from her. I could tell that it wsa hurting her to hurt me like this, but I could also hear the truth in her words. She really meant it. She no longer loved me, and instead was in love with some Hephaestus guy. "Who is he?" I choked out.

She looked at me and didn't respond for a little bit, "I don't know if I should tell you that right now. I don't want you to do anything stupid."

I shook my head even more as the tears continued falling, "I won't do anything stupid. I promise. I just need to know who he is. I need a name. Please Annabeth, tell me."

She sighed, "The guy I was sparring with during the lesson you watched. His name is Kyle. I'm really sorry Percy, I never wanted to hurt you, but I couldn't help it. It just happened and Kyle makes me happy and I love him. I hope we can still be friends and that you can move on and find happiness with another girl." She then stood up and walked back towards camp, leaving me sitting alone in the forest, crying silently over what I had lost.

After a while, I managed to calm down a little bit. I was still sad about losing Annabeth and a little upset. I knew I shouldn't be mad at her, but after everything I had just done, I couldn't help but be a little resentful. I didn't want to be mad at her, so naturally I tried to be mad at Kyle, but I had promised not to do anything stupid, so instead of taking out my anger and sadness on him, I just sat in the forest and kept my misery to myself.

After I had calmed down enough to walk again, I went to the beach. I knew that the beach would help me to refocus myself and help get over my depression. When I got to the beach, there was no one else there, which I was thankful for. I walked up to the waters edge and sat down. Feeling the waves roll up to me and then past me helped to calm me down even more. I sat there for hours. Eventually, it got dark out and I realized I had missed dinner and campfire. People were probably worried about me, so I figured I should head back to camp.

Then again, I could still feel my emotions threatening to run wild, so maybe going to camp wouldn't be the best option. As calm as I was now, I knew that I needed to vent. The problem was how I should do that. I had gotten always been a powerful demigod and a decent fighter, not many people could fight me and push me. After my quest though, I knew I had gotten immensely stronger, so I wasn't sure if there was anyone at camp who I could vent my emotions on in a fight. The training dummies wouldn't be enough either.

The sea does not like to be restrained. I knew that, and so I knew that I wouldn't be able to bottle up my emotions for long. I needed to vent, and soon, before I accidently let it all loose and end up hurting people.

A wave rolled over me and I felt something. I stood up and walked into the ocean and I could feel something fighting. I dove into the ocean and swam towards the source of this and before long, I found myself in front of a massive sea monster. _Good, _I though, _this should help me to vent some of my pent up emotions._

The sea monster was about 50 feet long and was covered in hard scales. It looked like a green whale with four legs and sharp teeth. I uncapped Riptide and swam straight at it. The sea monster moved a lot faster than I would have thought it could. As I moved in to strike at its neck, it turned and bared its fangs at me, ready to bite me in half. It would have also, except I could control the ocean and was able to will the currents to pull me away, right before I became monster dinner. I then swam through the ocean as fast as I could will the currents to move me, and slashed at the monster as much as I could.

Fortunately, I was able to hit it quite a bit, unfortunately, the scales were incredibly hard and managed to absorb most of the impact before I could cut through them, allowing me to only leave small gashes. The monster appeared to be weaker on the bottom, but every time I tried to strike it there, it would slash it me with its legs and claws, forcing me to move out of the way. On and on we went like this. I would deliver a few small cuts to the monster, and then try to slash at its underside only to be blocked by the monsters sharp claws and strong legs. It would also try to eat me and bite me with its jaws, but I was able to dodge that pretty easily.

Eventually, I got an idea. After I gave the monster a few more cuts on its thick scaly back, I moved to try to attack the underside again, but this time, when it tried to push me away with its claws and then bite me, instead of fleeing, I dove right at the mouth. I used my control over the seas to try and force the mouth to stay open while I jabbed Riptide straight through the back of tis throat. As soon as I did that, I released Riptide and willed the currents to pull me out of the monsters mouth.

The monster let loose a wail of pain and fury, and then dissolved into golden dust that was then spread throughout the ocean. I felt Riptide return to my pocket and I swam back to shore. I walked to my cabin and fell asleep.

For the next week, I was pretty miserable. I tried not to show it, but I didn't do a very good job. Most people just started avoiding me in hopes that my depression wouldn't rub off on them. Every now and then, Annabeth would give me a sad smile, but other than that she was perfectly happy. She was always with Kyle and he seemed to be able to keep her happy. I still hadn't talked to him yet, and to be honest I had no plans on doing so. At least not yet anyways. Annabeth tried to talk to me a few times, but I would always disappear before she could get to me. I wasn't mad at her; it just hurt to be around her.

Every night my father would release a sea monster for me to fight with and relieve my stress and anger on. At least I assumed it was him. Every night when I was at the ocean, I could feel a new monster appear that needed to be dealt with. It was nice and allowed me to not take out my pain on other people. One night after about a week had passed and I was still as miserable as always, I was walking past the amphitheater when I heard someone speak to me.

I wasn't sure who had spoken or what they had said, but it had come from next to the fire. I walked in and saw that no one was there so I was going to walk out when they spoke again, "Hello Perseus."

I turned towards the fire and saw a young girl with brown hair and warm eyes. I bowed, "Lady Hestia, good evening. What would you like?"

She smiled at me sadly before speaking, "I wish to show you the truth."

I was confuse, "What do you mean you wish to show me the truth? What are you talking about?"

She just looked at me with her warm eyes and sad smile before responding, "The truth behind your sadness. You were always a good hero. One who deserved a happy ending. I had hoped you would get it, but alas some of my relatives thought otherwise."

Now I was even more confuse, "What are you talking about? I'm sad because Annabeth left me, what else could there be to that?"

"That is indeed what has caused your sadness, but what caused her to leave you? That is what I wish to show you. It makes me sad that several of the gods that you saved multiple times did this to you. I had hoped it wasn't true, but because of your kindness towards me, I took it upon myself to find the truth. Now, I wish to show you what I found out." She then reached out her hand and touched my forehead.

I was on Olympus in a temple. I looked around and saw Athena sitting at a desk; she appeared to be deep in thought about something. After several minutes, she stood up with a triumphant look on her face. She quickly walked out of her temple and then down the street a ways until she reached a temple that appeared to be ooze love. It was almost sickening how much love there seemed to be in the air.

Athena walked right up to the palace's doors and walked in. She didn't announce her presence, or knock, or anything, she just barged right in. I thought that was kind of rude, but then the look on her face made me think she wasn't going waste time with such unimportant things. Sitting down on a couch is if expecting the visit was none other than the goddess of love herself.

I had seen Aphrodite before, but she still took my breath away. She was absolutely stunning. I stared at her for a several seconds before I remembered that there were more important things than staring at the goddess of love. I saw open her mouth and speak, "Hello Athena. It is most unusual for you to come to me. What could I help you with? Is there someone you want to break your oath to be with and you want my help to get him? Whatever it is it must be important for you to just barge right in like this."

I thought Athena would bite her head off for talking to her that way, but instead she just ignored her and spoke, "No I do not plan on breaking my oath of maidenhood. What I want your help with involved a daughter of mine. She is in love with one who I do not approve of and I want you to help her fall for another instead."

Aphrodite looked a little sad that it didn't involve Athena, but since it involved love, she was still willing to help out, "Well, I suppose that is a start anyways. Maybe some day I will be able to convince you of the wonders of true love. Well anyways, explain to me what you need and I will see what I can do."

Athena nodded her head, "Thanks. I want you to make Annabeth fall in love with someone other than that sea spawn."

Aphrodite gasped, "WHAT!" she screeched. "No way, that is my favorite couple of all time. Why would I break them apart? And didn't you just send Percy on some quest to earn your approval? What are you playing at?"

I too, was stunned. Athena had sent me on a quest and at the same time was trying to break me and Annabeth up? What was going on here?

Athena took a deep breath, "Calm down Aphrodite. I do not approve of the boy because he is a sea spawn. His father is the worst of the gods and therefore Jackson is not worthy of my daughter. I also have two reasons why you should do this. The first is that you promised the boy you would make his love life a real pain, this would certainly make his love life a pain AND it would allow you to mess with it even more. Secondly, if you do this, because I am friends with Hephaestus, I can alert you to any traps he ahs planned for you and Ares for the next millennia. You do this favor and you won't have to worry about being embarrassed by him for a thousand years."

Aphrodite seemed to consider this. After several minutes she replied, "That is why you sent Percy on the quest. Not to earn your approval, but to get him away from your daughter. You hoped that while he was gone you could get her to fall for another man, but she didn't do that and so you have come to me for my help in the matter. Fine. This offer is too good to refuse. Swear on the Styx that you will alert me to any of Hephaestus's traps for the next millennia and I will help you."

Athena smiled. She knew that she had won and that her plan was now a guaranteed success. "I swear on the Styx that I will alert you to all of Hephaestus's traps for the next millennia. Also, I have set things up where she should end up with a son of Hephaestus named Kyle. I will keep Percy under the sky until he can't hold it any more and then send him back to camp with a bunch of monsters. If he dies, that would make things easier, but if he doesn't, make sure you have this done before he gets back to camp."

Aphrodite looked up at Athena and smiled, "Well, you most certainly do have this planned out don't you? Well, leave the love stuff to me. If I am going to do this right, I will need several months to do this, so try to keep Percy away until then. If he shows up before I am done, it will become much harder to get her to love someone else. Now, off you go Athena, I have some work to do."

When the vision faded, I was absolutely furious. I was also stunned and completely bewildered. After everything I had done, this was how the gods thanked me? I was absolutely livid. I felt a pair of arms around me and heard a warm voice whisper soothing words to me. I felt fresh tears falling down my cheeks at the betrayal and truth behind all my pain. Before I fell asleep, I remember thinking that Athena was going to pay for what she had done to me.

I woke up the next day and realized that it was already passed noon. At first I was surprised that no one had woken me up, but then I remembered that everyone was avoiding me while I was in my depressed phase. Lucky for them, I was no longer as depressed. Now I was just angry.

I left my cabin and tried to find Grover. I looked through the camp but couldn't find him. I asked Chiron if he knew where Grover was and he told me that Grover was in Central Park. I thanked him and asked if I could get a ride there.

Chiron looked at me, "Percy, what are you planning? Lately you have been depressed, but today you suddenly seem to be better. What is going on?"

I smiled at Chiron, "Nothing, I just want to talk to my old friend again since I haven't had the opportunity to do so very often lately."

Chiron sighed, "Fine. I will have Argus drive you there."

I thanked him and then got ready to go.

About an hour later, I was in Central Park. I had told Argus to go back without me and that I would just get a cab. After Argus had driven off, I walked into the forested area of the park in search of Grover. I finally found him in the middle of a discussion with a dryad. I waited patiently for them to finish talking, but Grover saw me first and excused himself from the conversation.

He walked over to me and gave me a look of nervousness, "How are you doing Percy? I've been worried about you this past week. Your emotions are out of control."

I gave him an apologetic smile, "Sorry about that, but after Annabeth broke up with me, it was hard to keep my emotions in check. However, that brings me to why I'm here."

He gave me a curious look, "Oh? And what might that reason be?"

I sighed, "I'm really angry right now and am about to do something incredibly stupid that could very well get me killed. Because of that, I want you to break the empathy link so that if things go wrong, you won't get killed as well."

Grover appeared shocked, "WHAT! What do you mean you might get killed? What are you planning to do? And no I won't break it, I mean I kept it for the titan and giant war, so why would I break it because of a new danger?"

I looked at him and contemplated the best way of answering him, finally I have him a sad smile and said, "Look, it doesn't matter what I am planning to do. You can't talk me out of what I'm going to do so don't even try. As for the empathy link, for the two wars, if I died, the world would have ended anyways and it allowed us to communicate and keep in touch. Now however, there is no real danger of the world ending and what I am doing is pretty selfish. If you die because of my selfish actions, I would never forgive myself, so please break the link. Maybe later if I survive you can recreate it or something."

Grover sighed and I think he realized he didn't have much of a choice. "Fine. Close your eyes and I will break it, but if you die, I won't forgive you. You are my best friend after all."

I chuckled, "Well, I will try to survive." I then closed my eyes and stood still. After a few minutes, I felt a strange tingling in the back of my head that lasted for several seconds and then vanished.

Grover said, "Okay, I removed the link. Go do what you need to do, but you had better tell me what this is about when you are done."

"Hmmm, I might. It might be best if you don't know though. Anyways, thanks for breaking the link. Hopefully I will be back at camp tonight. If I am, I will send you an iris-message." I then turned around and walked off towards the Empire State Building.

**Well, that's it for this chapter.**

**I had been planning on writing a few more scenes in this chapter, but it was getting pretty long and it has been a while since I updated so this is where I will end it. **

**The next chapter should be up within the next couple of days, so stay tuned.**

**Let me know how I did with the different characters personalities and stuff. They won't show up again for a while, but if they need to change at all, let me know so that when they do come back in I do a better job at it.**

**Also, if you want to be cool and stuff, send me a character for a huntress. They won't show up for a little bit, but it would be nice if I could get a little help with them. At the very least give me names. I hate coming up with names. Personalities and parents and life stories you can send me if you want, but I don't mind creating that stuff on my own, it's really just the names that I suck at coming up with.**

**Anyways, I love all you people who have taken the time to read and review and other cool stuff, so thanks for that.**


	4. Chapter 4

**Onwards, to chapter 4.**

**Just a warning, this is going to be a rather depressing chapter. **

**I feel like the books were always talking about respecting the gods or they would kill you and stuff like that, but then nothing bad ever happened when people were rude to the gods. Well, without giving too much of this chapter away, I am not as nice as the books.**

**Anyways, on a happier note, thanks for all the reviews and stuff. It definitely helps to motivate me to write more and sooner. **

**Now, lets get on with the story.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own PJO or the related books.**

Percy POV

After leaving Central Park, I walked through the city until I reached the Empire State Building. I knew that what I was about to do wasn't smart, but I was too mad at Athena and Aphrodite to really care. I knew that a confrontation wasn't the best idea, especially while I was mad, but right now I needed let it all out. I also wanted answers. I mean, Athena was the goddess of wisdom right? She must have some reason to hate me other than who my father is, right? She must realize that I'm not my father and that she shouldn't judge me based on him, so what exactly had I done that made her hate me so?

I tried to come up with answers to my questions as I walked, but nothing came, leaving me angrier and more frustrated than ever. I walked into the lobby and stormed right up to the security guard. I glared at him and stuck out my hand. Of course, he ignored me.

I cleared my throat and he looked up at me, "Yes? Would you like something?"

I sighed, really not in the mood for this. "Look, give me the key to the 600th floor, or I will pull out my sword and make you give me the key." I then reached one hand into my pocket and pulled out Riptide in pen form while leaving my other hand by his face, waiting for the keycard.

He tried to glare at me, but as soon as he looked into my eyes he paled and flinched backwards. He then reached into his desk and pulled out a keycard. "Here you go. Have a fun trip up to Olympus. Sorry for the trouble, it won't happen again, I promise."

I took the keycard and went straight to the elevator. During the ride up, I didn't even listen to whatever crappy music was playing. Instead, I was trying to come up with some plan of action for once I got to Olympus. I couldn't come up with anything, so I decided I would just wing it. I would check out Athena's temple first. If she wasn't there then I would look for a library or something. If I still couldn't find her, I would go to the throne room and ask Zeus. He wouldn't be happy, but I would force him to either let me talk to Athena or kill me. Who knows what he would choose.

The elevator finally stopped and the doors opened up. I walked out and took a quick look around. It was the first time I had been to Olympus in several years and it appeared that all the construction was done and it was completely rebuilt. I would have stopped to admire it all, but I was too focused on finding a certain goddess to really care what it looked like. I saw a minor goddess looking at me with fear in her eyes and realized that I was glaring at everything. I sighed, put on a smile, and walked over to her.

"Hey, can you tell me how to get to Athena's temple?"

She smiled at me, "Of course. Anything for he Hero of Olympus." She then explained to me how to reach Athena's temple and I walked off. After I had made a few turns, I realized I hadn't thanked her, or even learnt which goddess she was. I also realized I was too angry to really care.

After walking for about five minutes, I came upon a temple that was definitely Athena's. From what I knew about architecture, this temple seemed to have everything. That didn't mean much though, because I knew hardly anything about architecture. I could tell it was hers because there were a bunch of stone and marble owls hanging around in front of it. The sight of the owls and the temple in general reminded me again of why I was here. I was going to have a talk with the goddess, and if her answers didn't calm me down, then things could get ugly. I had a feeling things were going to get ugly.

I walked up to the doors and banged as hard as I could on them. I waited about 15 seconds and then summoned a whole bunch of water and slammed it into the doors, throwing them open and soaking a certain goddess of wisdom. She fell down and appeared quite stunned for a few seconds.

After she recovered, she stood up and glared at me, "What do you want, _Perseus_?" She spat my name and made it sound like some terrible insult or something.

She probably thought she could make me scare me away or something, I don't really know. It didn't matter though, I was pissed at her, and just seeing her made my anger reach new levels. I could feel my body shaking in rage and felt my right hand move towards Riptide.

I forced myself to take a few deep breaths and calm down before responding, "Athena. You are the biggest bitch I have ever met. You are a double-crossing asshole and a stupider than Ares."

She glared at me and her face contorted in rage, "PERSEUS JACKSON! Watch your tongue. I am a GODDESS, treat me with respect or I will make you pay."

I glared right back at her, "If you had wanted me to continue respecting me, you shouldn't have lied to me and broken me and Annabeth up. I spent years showing you as much respect as I could because I wanted you to like me. You repaid me by bribing Aphrodite into making Annabeth fall in love with someone else."

Her expression turned to shock before going back to anger, "Wha- no, I would never do that. How dare you accuse me of such an action?"

I continued glaring at her and she took a step back, "Ha, I saw you meet with her and plan it. You promised to alert her to Hephaestus's traps for the next millennia if she broke up Annabeth and me. You sent me on the quest not to get your approval, but to separate us so you could get her to fall for someone else. You planned everything because you hate me for NO REASON!" By the end of my rant, I was screaming in her face. Anger was radiating from me and for a second, she appeared afraid.

Her fear didn't last though, after a few seconds she smiled at me. "So what? What are you going to do about it, Perseus? If you tell any of the gods, they won't care. You are just a demigod so your problems don't really concern them. If you tell your father, he would probably start a war and that is something you don't want to do. I know you don't want to start a war over this because then every person that during the war you would feel guilty about. You won't tell any demigods because Annabeth is happy and you want her to be happy, so if you told her the truth, she either wouldn't believe you or she would be angry and unhappy and sad and you wouldn't be able to handle it. Face it Perseus, you have no one to tell. There is nothing you can do about this, so you decided to come to me and try to make me feel guilty. Let me just tell you, it won't work. My daughter is better off without you in her life. I know though, that if I killed you a war would indeed break out, so I did the next best thing and broke you. Now you can't stand being around my daughter because it makes you sad. So, what are you going to do now?"

The more she talked, the angrier I got. I hated to admit it, but she was right. The only gods who would care about what she had done would probably start a war if they found out and I most certainly did not want that to happen. I had already known that I couldn't tell any of my friends about it because that would just cause problems. She was right, there really was nothing I could do. That fact just made me even angrier.

I knew if I didn't say something I would draw my sword and attack her, so I took a deep breath and spoke, "Fine. You win. I hope you are happy. You have taken my away the happiness of the Hero of Olympus. I do have a question though. What did I ever do to make you hate me so much? I have tried my hardest to get you to like me and as far as I know, I have never done anything that would make you hate me so much. So why?"

She just smirked at me, "Your father is Poseidon I know what kind of a being he is, and as you are his son, there is no doubt in my mind that you will turn out to be just like him."

She looked at me as if that was supposed to answer my question. I just glared at her, "You didn't answer my question."

She got a look of confusion on her face, "Yes I did. What do you mean?"

"I asked you what I had done to make you hate me. You told me that you hate my father. As I am clearly not my father, you can't hold me responsible for whatever he did. So what exactly is it that I did that makes you hate me sop much?"

She glared at me, "I need no other reason than that your father is Poseidon. Now leave my palace at once."

I glared at her and could feel my rage building to a point where it was about o explode, "You are the goddess of wisdom. You should look through history and tell me what good has come from passing hatred on to the next generation. Grudges and hatred passed on to people who are not involved with the initial problem just leads to unnecessary violence, pain, and death. By passing your hatred of my father down to me, you are following in the footsteps of some of the biggest idiots to ever exist. For a goddess of wisdom, you are pretty damn stupid."

I knew that that would piss her off. Using logic to call her stupid was bound to make the ever-prideful goddess of wisdom explode in anger. I knew fighting her was a bad idea, so I settled with angering her and walking off instead.

Before I got very far I heard her speaking again, "You will regret that insult Perseus Jackson. So far you have avoided the wrath of a god merely because you were an important tool of ours. Now that we no longer need you, I will make you regret ever having insulted my intelligence. I swear I will make you feel pain beyond anything you thought possible for your insults." I then heard her temple doors slam closed.

After hearing her promise, I was scared. I realized that it probably was a terrible idea to insult her, but I was so angry and knew that I couldn't fight her, so I had relieved my anger through my words. After hearing that, I decided I wouldn't try to anger Aphrodite. I did however have a request to make.

I walked through the streets of Olympus for a while until I found her temple. It had heart shaped stuff and other fun things like that built into its design. I walked up to the doors and knocked.

After about half a minute had passed, the doors opened and I saw Aphrodite. Normally, her beauty would have been distracting, but right now I was focused on other things and didn't even bother to notice her appearance.

She smiled sweetly at me and said, "Why, Percy, what can I do for you today?"

I glared at her and she frowned. "You owe me something."

Her frown deepened, "You are a demigod, I owe you nothing. However, since you have saved us all a few times, I will listen to you request."

I glared at her again, "No, you owe me. You told me you liked my relationship with Annabeth and would make my love life a mess, but to think that you would stoop so low as to breaking us up? Just because you don't like getting caught cheating on your husband with a scumbag? You owe me something."

At my words, she was first angry, but then her face fell. "I don't know how you found out about that, but the real reason I broke you up is that Athena is scary and not someone you want to anger. I am sorry about breaking you two up, but I really had no other choice. I'm sure you understand how bad of an enemy Athena could be."

I grimaced, "Yeah, I just insulted her intelligence and she promised me pain. Anyways, I was going to yell at you as well, but instead I have decided on something else. Make me stop loving her. That is the least you could do. I don't want to love anyone else, but I also want to stop loving Annabeth since I know I can never have her."

She sighed, "You really shouldn't have angered her, you will most certainly regret it. As for your request, I will not do that with my powers, but I will tell you how to get over it. Just give it time. For now, you should avoid her until the initial grief has worn off. After that, just give it time. Your feelings will slowly fade. It would happen faster if you fell for someone else, but for now at least, I will not be messing with you."

I sighed, "Fine. Thanks for the advice." I turned around and walked out of her temple.

As I walked back through Olympus, I tried to imagine just what Athena was going to do to hurt me. I understood how smart she could be and that if she promised pain I would indeed be hurt, but what was she going to do to me? The thoughts that came to mind were not happy ones.

Fifteen minutes later I was on the streets of New York again. I considered going back to camp immediately, but decided that since I was in town, I would visit my mother for a little while before heading back.

When I got to the apartment, no one answered the door. I figured mom and Paul had gone out to run errands or something. Or maybe they had gone out for dinner, it was getting to be that time of the day. I decided I would let myself in and wait for them to show up. I really wanted to talk to my mom, she would be able to make me feel better and give me advice.

As soon as I entered the apartment, I felt something strange. It's hard to explain, but I felt a dark chill. I knew immediately that something was terribly wrong. I walked into the kitchen and my heart stopped.

Sprawled on the floor in a heap were my mother and Paul. I just stood there staring for a few minutes before I realized I should check them before I made any assumptions. I walked over to them and bent over, but before I did, something caught my eye and I knew that they were dead.

Sitting in the middle of the kitchen table was a new owl statue. Its eyes seemed to stare into my very being. My breath caught and I understood Athena's promise. This was indeed the worst pain I had ever felt.

My mother, the greatest woman to ever live, as well as my pretty awesome stepfather, were both dead. And it was my fault.

The pain was terrible. I felt as if everything that I was was being destroyed. I had spent my life trying to protect everyone I cared about, and now because of one stupid action, the people I cared about were dead. I had betrayed myself and all of my friends. I couldn't even fully comprehend the emotional and mental pain this brought me. I stood there, leaning over the bodies of my mom and Paul, and felt myself slowly and painfully crumbling. After a few seconds, the pain became too much and I passed out.

I woke up I don't even know how much later. When I opened my eyes, I realized I was back in the bighouse at camp. _How did I get here?_ I wondered. I tried to think back to the last thing I remembered and I recalled walking to my moms apartment in New York. I then remembered what I had found there. The pain washed over me again, only this time I couldn't pass out from it.

I turned myself over in the bed, buried my head in a pillow, and sobbed. I cried for all the pain I had felt during the last week. Everything came back to me and I let it all out. As my crying died down, I felt the guilt wash over me. My mother and Paul were only dead because of me. It was my fault they were dead. I wanted to kill myself, but I was too weak to figure out how to do it. I let out my pain and anguish. Screaming and crying into the pillow. I could hear people moving around occasionally, but I just ignored it and continued my sobbing. Eventually, I fell back asleep.

My dream was weird. I was alone in a room. It was a plain room with four walls and no doors. There was a floor and a ceiling as well. There were no windows or lights, yet I could see perfectly clearly. I could feel all of my pain and suffering, but for some reason, it wasn't able to make me break down. That made me feel worse, but I still couldn't break down. Instead, it was as if the room was asking me what I planned to do now.

The room seemed to take my pain and make it its own. At the same time, it was if the room was comforting me. It told me that last time I was angry and upset, my rash actions had caused me even more pain. Now, I was being forced to sit and think about what I was going to do next. I knew the room wouldn't let me go until I had made a decision.

Being able to feel my pain and think clearly was strange. I couldn't figure out how I was able to do it. I did, however, do it. I thought about what I was going to do. I knew confronting Athena would only lead to more pain. I also knew that if I made a big deal out of this and told my father, he wouldn't even hesitate to start a war. Unlike me, he was able to get mad at Athena and fight her. I couldn't let that happen. I already had the death of my mother and Paul on my hands, if a war broke out over this, there would be even more deaths I would be responsible for.

I wondered if I could just stay at camp. It seemed like a good idea to me, until I had a really disturbing thought. Athena had promised me more pain than I could handle, she would make my life miserable. What if I stayed at camp with my friends and she took them away from me. Just being friends with me would be putting them at risk. I had to leave camp.

I wasn't sure how long I would last, but as long as I was at camp, I was putting my friends in danger. I decided I would leave camp and live away from people. That would allow me to not put others at risk and it wasn't me doing something stupid like angering a god. I was in pretty good shape after my quests and had little trouble killing monsters, so I should be able to survive on my own without too much trouble.

With those thoughts, I slowly fell asleep in that room. As soon as I had fallen asleep there, I woke up again in the bighouse.

**Well, that is another chapter finished.**

**I might get one more chapter done this week. I leave to go camping on Thursday and will return on Sunday, so if I don't post before I leave, it might be a little while before my next update.**

**This was a rather depressing chapter to write. Poor Percy. His fatal flaw makes this all so much worse for him.**

**Anyways, hmmm, I don't know if enjoy is the right word, but hopefully you could at least appreciate this chapter.**

**If you have suggestions, comments, or have anything to say, let me know in a review or PM.**

**I will probably update my other story before this one, so yeah, if you care there is that.**

**Thanks for reading.**


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5. Random fact about me, but 5 is my favorite number. Also, the letter E is my favorite. Coincidentally, E is the fifth letter of the alphabet. Also I was born in the fifth month of the year. Mathematically speaking, e is a pretty cool number as well. **

**I could go on, but this really isn't relevant to the story.**

**Speaking of not relevant to this story, it would be nice if you would go to my profile page and vote in my poll. If you want to provide some input for my next story, that is. **

**So, like I said with my other story, I was planning to update yesterday but for some reason just didn't feel like writing at all yesterday so I put it off until today. Sorry about the wait, but it happens.**

**Thanks for all the reviews and other cool stuff.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own PJO or the related works.**

_ With those thoughts, I slowly fell asleep in that room. As soon as I had fallen asleep there, I woke up again in the bighouse. _

Percy POV

I opened my eyes and the pain was back. This time however, I was able to control it slightly. The worst of my mourning and grief was done, I still felt the pain and the guilt, but I was also able to force myself to think of other things. I sat up and immediately felt dizzy. I nearly fell back on my pillow, but I managed to snap back to reality after a few seconds and recover.

I looked around and saw that the room was deserted. I was in a plain room. There was a door in the wall to my right and a window in the wall on my left. Straight ahead of me was a closet in the wall while the wall behind me was empty and boring. The walls were painted a light blue color. It was all very dull and drab. My bed was pushed right up against the wall and stopped right below the window. Between me and the door, there was an old desk with a chair at it. Sitting on the desk were some flowers and cards. Probably condolences for my loss and whatnot. I didn't really care. Well, I cared, but I didn't want to show it. I felt like shit and didn't want to feel the pity of others; it would just make me feel worse.

I swung my legs over the side of my bed and tried to think. I needed a way to get out of here without anyone seeing me, or at least as few people as possible. I felt like I had been out for a while, so I'm sure people were worried, it probably wouldn't be long until someone came to check on me. In order to leave camp though, I was going to need supplies. The closet in my room had plenty of clothes in it, but nothing to pack them in. I knew I had a bag in my cabin, but I didn't want to try and get there in the middle of the day, too many people would see me.

I then remembered on my first quest, Grover had told me he found a bag in the bighouse and given it to me. I figured if he had found one, chances were that there were others sitting around I could take. I didn't like stealing, but it would be worse if people at camp got hurt because of me.

After several minutes of planning, I climbed out of the bed completely and walked over to the door. I out my ear against it and heard no sound, so I deemed it safe to open it. I stuck my head and looked down the hallway. As I suspected, there was no one around. On the other side of the hallway, a supply closet caught my eye, I wasn't sure why it did, but I had learned to trust my senses so I snuck over and opened it.

The closet looked like it was filled solely with backpacking materials. I couldn't believe my luck; it was never this good. Something must have been up, but I didn't have the time to worry about it. I grabbed a backpack and crammed it full of supplies as fast as I could. I then went back to my room and repacked the pack with the supplies and clothes. I adjusted the straps so the pack fit me comfortably and then prepared to head out.

Before I left, I decided to write a short note to the people at camp. I pulled out a piece of paper as well as a pen from the desk and slowly wrote, being careful not to let my dyslexia interfere with my note.

_Dear Chiron and Camp Halfblood,_

_ For reasons I cannot talk about, I must leave camp. Things were said and done that cannot be undone or forgotten. Thank you all for everything you have done for me, especially caring for me after the murder of my parents. For your own safety, I am now leaving camp and will probably never return. I hope you all live long and happy lives and are able to find true peace and comfort._

_Sincerely, Percy_

I wrote the letter and left it on top of the desk, pushing all the other things to the side. I felt proud of my letter. I had managed to avoid letting my dyslexia affect me. I had also conveyed my reason for leaving and wished them all pleasant futures. I felt like I had nothing left to say, so I shouldered my pack and walked out of my room.

As I left my room, I heard a conch sound signaling a meal. Based on the time of day it was, I was guessing lunch. I smiled, that meant Dionysus and Chiron wouldn't be in the bighouse for a little while and most of the campers would be in the pavilion eating. I carefully snuck through the bighouse and out the backdoor. I looked around to check for people. Seeing no one, I walked straight ahead and past the boundaries of camp. As I passed the borders, I felt sadness wash over me once more, although not for the same reason as earlier. I looked back and gave camp one last look before plunging into the forest beyond the camp.

I didn't have a destination in mind. I didn't really want to stay on the run every day for the rest of my life, but I wasn't sure settling down in one place was the best idea either. If I did settle down, it would need to be near a water source though. Preferably with a forested area as well. I knew I could make about 100 miles of progress a day if I really tried, so I didn't worry too much about avoiding monsters. With my demigod scent back to normal, they wouldn't be able to sense me from as far away or gang up on me as easily.

I figured the farther away from Olympus I was, the harder it would be for any of the gods to find me. I also knew that the ocean was off limits or else my father would sense me. If I ran into any nature spirits, I would have to ask them to pretend they never saw me, especially any naiads I came across in rivers and streams. I didn't know what kind of a search would be mounted for me, but I had a feeling that not all of the gods or demigods would accept my explanation and let it be.

The first couple of days were miserable. I was lonely and depressed as well as weak from my several days of unconsciousness. Every now and then, my grief would overwhelm me and I would be forced to stop so I could let the tears spill. I had nothing to distract me from my thoughts or emotions, which allowed them to have a greater influence on me than I would have liked.

After several days, I began meditating. While I ran. It was a strange experience for me. I had always thought you needed to sit and be motionless in order to meditate, and maybe that was true and I wasn't really meditating, but it felt like what I thought meditating would be so that is what I called it.

I would be running along, or walking, or jogging, and I would just empty my mind. At first it was incredibly hard, what with ADHD trying to make me think random nonsense all the time, but over time, I found ways to do it. As I travelled along, I would lose sight of everything from my mind and instead focused solely on the world around me. Without my thoughts distracting me, I could focus on anything, whether it was an idea or just the world in general. It was a rather peaceful thing to do, but I was never able to keep it up for long before I would get distracted by thoughts and brought back to reality.

Whenever my emotions and grief would threaten to overtake me, I would meditate to clear my mind. After a couple of weeks had passed, I realized I was heading west. I wasn't sure why I was doing that, but there I was running west at 100 miles a day. I was right about monsters not being a major problem at this point. I was in good enough shape that and strong enough with enough experience that killing the few monsters I came across every day was rather easy. Apart from meditating and killing monsters, I spent my time training my waterpower's as well.

I would run and try to sense outwards for water. At first, I wasn't able to detect anything except for lakes and streams and rivers, but over time, I began being able to sense the water in objects as well. I found I could feel the water present in a tree or in a blade of grass. I could sense insects moving around me due to the water in their bodies. As my ability to sense the sources of water grew I found myself being able to feel even the miniscule amounts of water in all objects if I tried. Even the vapor in the air I was able to sense.

As I worked on sensing it, I also worked on pulling it out of the objects I sensed it in. There wasn't a whole lot, but I began being able to dehydrate plants and rocks, even concentrate the water in the air. I could not, however, control the water in living creatures. I figured that was a limit to my powers that I wouldn't be able to overcome, so I left it alone. I didn't really want to be able to either, that just seemed like a creepy power to have, not really my style.

My water training combined with my running and occasional monster fight served to exhaust me and make me stronger yet again. I had thought that after the tasks I had done for Athena, I wouldn't be able to get into better shape, but now the travel was even easier. I would do my daily travels and not even be completely winded. I would wake up without the soreness or tightness.

About three weeks into my journey, I made it to Colorado. I didn't really have a destination in mind, but the mountains provided me with forest and plenty of water sources to choice from. I figured this was as good a place as any to set up a new home for myself. I didn't know much about the geography of Colorado other than the fact that it is full of mountains. Eventually, I found a lake that I liked with a small stream flowing out of it and surrounded by forest and I set up my camp there. It was relatively far from civilization and provided me with my own little sanctuary of a home.

I set up my camp several hundred yards away from the lake, on high ground. That would protect my camp from flooding still let me be near the water. I didn't have much to set up for my camp though. I had my tent and that was it. I decided that if I was going to make this my home, I would need a little bit more. I found a log near my tent and sat on it to think about what else I would need.

I wanted to be self-sufficient; no relying on freeze-dried backpacking food. That meant I would need to hunt. If I was going to hunt, I would need how to use a bow. I shuddered at the thought, but hunting with a sword wouldn't work because the animals could just get away from me. I would also need to learn what kinds of plant life I would be able to eat and all that good stuff. A little more shelter than a tent would be nice as well. I could get a large tarp and some rope to tie it up with. I chair or two would be nice as well.

I made a mental list and decided that the next day I would down and find a hunting store to get supplies at. I wanted a good bow as well as at least 30 arrows, since I couldn't make them and I wasn't sure how long they would last. I would get a large tarp as well as lots of rope. I would get a folding camping chair and some guides to local plant life and such. I would get animal gutting materials and a guide to teach me what I could and couldn't eat from the animals as well as how to prepare it safely. I also wanted to restock my wardrobe since my clothes were getting work down and they were all Camp Halfblood clothes. I wanted normal mortal clothes that didn't remind me of my old home. I wanted to forget about that life.

The next morning, before I headed into town, I decided to check my supplies and see if I needed anything else. I had enough freeze-fried food to last me two weeks, hopefully that would be long enough for me to learn how to hunt. I didn't need a water filter because I worked as a water filter. I had a lighter as well as flint and steel for fire starting, so that wouldn't be a problem. Feeling pretty good, I made a mental note of where my camp was and then set off towards the nearest small town, about 40 miles away.

It was a small town, but it had a pretty decent looking hunting store. I went in and saw that it was stocked with everything you could need out in the wilderness. I wondered why such a small town of about 5000 had such a high quality hunting store, but figured it was probably because they got a lot of this kind of business in the region.

When I entered the store, there was only one employee around. He was a rough looking man who looked to be in his 50's. He was tall and looked like he was in pretty good shape. He gave me a thorough looking over before giving me a curt nod and returning to his book. I took that to mean he wasn't going to kick me out, so I walked around and gathered my supplies up. I found a 20' x 30' heavy-duty tarp that looked like it would serve its purpose quite well. While I was at it, I picked up 100 feet worth of rope as well as two rolls of duct tape. I also found several guides to the plants in the area as well as several guides on how to prepare hunted meat.

I then walked over to the clothes and gathered several sets of heavy-duty outdoor survival clothes. I got t-shirts and sweatshirts, jackets and jeans. I got special outdoor socks and heavy duty hiking boots. I got underwear for every outdoor occasion. Next were the hunting knives and other animal gutting tools I would need as well as a foldable camping chair.

I then walked over to the bows to make my final selection. I knew nothing at all about bows and archery stuff in the demigod world. In the mortal world, I was even more ignorant. Each bow had a list of features and stats about it that made no sense at all to me. I gave up on trying to understand it all pretty quickly. Instead, I figured I would just pick up each bow and try it until I found one that I liked.

Eventually, I settled on a bow that was as tall as my chest. It was made of maple and fiberglass and had a rather comfortable grip to it. I then went and grabbed the recommended arrows and found a quiver that comfortably fit me. I took everything I had picked out and hauled it all up to the checkout counter.

The man put his book down and gave me a funny look, "Kid, I don't know who you are, but you looked like someone who was an outdoor person so I let you in without talking to you. Based on what you have gathered here to purchase, I need to ask you several questions. Do you know how much this all is going to cost? Are you planning on living out in the wilderness? Do you have a hunting license? Are you sane?"

I looked at the old man and considered how I should answer his questions. I decided it would be best if I just manipulated the mist. Chiron had finally taught me how to before the giant war. I raised my hand, concentrated on the feeling of the mist, and snapped m fingers. Instantly, I could feel the mist moving and flowing around me. I looked at the man and said, "I have already bought and paid for these items. You have no problems with me and are now allowing me to leave."

I then took the last of my money, several hundred dollars as well as 10 golden drachmas and placed them on the counter. I knew the money wasn't enough, but the pure gold of the coins I gave him should easily cover the cost of what I was buying. I gathered up my stuff and put it all in my pack, except for the bow, arrows and quiver, which I slung over my pack. I looked at the man who appeared to be in a daze and left the store.

Finding my way back to my camp was a little harder than I thought it would be. For one thing, the bow and quiver were not meant to be worn over a pack, so they kept moving around and being generally uncomfortable. I ran back towards where I had set up camp, but it was hard to pinpoint the location exactly so I ended up spending extra time searching for it.

Eventually I did find it, and when I did, I was starving. I had gone all the way to town and back and hadn't eaten anything. I boiled myself some water for my freeze-dried dinner and ate the whole thing in about 10 seconds. I then went about setting up a nicer camp than just a tent.

The clearing I had set up my camp in wasn't really clear. There were branches and pinecones and stuff all over the place. I went and cleared it all off and then set about setting up the tarp. That was a harder task than I had anticipated. After several hours of struggling with the tarp, climbing trees and tying ropes, I finally managed to get it hung in a decent fashion.

Just beyond the edge of the tarp, I set up a real campfire. I dug a hole about three feet deep and wide, clearing out all tree roots and other burnable objects. I then filled the hole back in and created a ring of rocks around the whole. All in all, it was a nice little fire pit.

Once my camp was more or less set up, I climbed into my tent and fell asleep. My dreams were not peaceful. Ever since my parents had been killed, I had been having nightmares about them dying as well as my friends being tortured and put through their own forms of pain. As the worst of the pain occurred, they would all stare at me and ask me why.

I woke up in the early morning, gasping for breath and covered in sweat. The dream had not been pretty and I wanted to forget it, so I busied myself with getting my new home set up even more. Since I had a covered area and a fire pit, I needed a supply of wood for burning. I hiked around the area and gathered fallen sticks and branches. I formed a nice pile of them in my camp and even gathered smaller stuff for kindling when starting a fire. I then grabbed my plant guides and set off into the woods, looking for plants and trying to identify what I could and couldn't eat.

After several hours of that, I was incredibly bored. I headed back to camp and decided to set up archery targets and try to teach myself to shoot my bow. Trying to come up with something to use as targets was rather challenging. I didn't want to just shoot at trees because that would dull my arrows and probably break them sooner, I needed something soft yet strong enough to hold together. I had seen bales of hay used before, but I didn't have any of those out here to use. I looked out at the lake and got an idea.

My waterpower's had grown quite a lot in terms of my control over them and how I could manipulate the water. I raised my hands and pulled a large chunk of water out of the lake. I then formed the water into a massive wall and created a target by carving water out of the wall. I then froze the water with a larger than normal amount of air in it so that the ice wouldn't be too hard. What I was left with was a 10'x10' wall of ice with a massive target in the middle of it. I figured that would be a good enough target for now and set it up about 50 feet in front of me.

I picked up my bow and slung my quiver of arrows over my back. I knocked my first arrow, aimed it, and fired. The good news was that I hit the wall of ice; the bad news was that I barely skimmed the top left corner of it. I sighed and tried again with another arrow. That shot wasn't any better. I proceeded to fire every arrow I had before going to retrieve them. I had gotten five of my arrows to actually stick into the ice wall I had created, the rest had either just skimmed the outside of it or had missed entirely. I was glad no one was around to see me failing at archery.

I recovered my arrows and tried again. After my second round, I had gotten eight arrows to stick into the target, two of them even landed in the outer circle. I proceeded to spend the rest of my afternoon working on my archery. When I finally finished, I was able to get 20 arrows to stick in the wall as well as getting eight of them to actually land on the target on the wall. I still wasn't close to good, but I was making progress.

When I finished, I no longer needed to the wall of ice, so I sent it back to the lake and melted it. I then walked down to the lake to practice my waterpower's. After several hours of that, I was exhausted. I made myself some freeze-dried spaghetti and ate it all. After dinner, I decided to try doing normal meditating while just sitting down. It was strange and didn't work too well with my ADHD, but it worked well enough for me to want to try it again the following night and maybe make a habit of doing it.

After that, I just sat down and watched my small fire burn away. As I sat there, I thought I saw a face in the flames, but I put off to my imagination combined with my tiredness. I put out my fire and went to sleep.

As the days went by, I lost track of time. Monsters rarely showed up and when they did, I would dispatch them easily. No one found me and I was able to live in quiet. Several weeks must have passed because I was out of freeze-fried food. I realized that and figured it was time to learn to hunt. My aim with a bow was still far from perfect, but I was able to hit close to the bull's-eye now and most of my shots landed on the target. All of my shots were hitting the wall.

Using my water senses, I felt out for any dear or elk or antelope around. I found a small herd of them a few miles away. I ran as quietly as I could towards them and was thankful they seemed to be grazing. It didn't take long to find what I was looking for. I tried to stay hidden in the brush and aimed my bow. I would only have one shot, if I missed, they would all run away and I would have to start over or go hungry. I aimed at one with antlers and after concentrating as hard as my ADHD mind would allow me, which was actually quite a bit now that I had started meditating every night, I released the arrow and watched it fly.

The arrow impaled itself in the animal's side and he dropped to the ground in pain. All the others ran away at full speed. At first, I couldn't believe my luck at hitting the deer, but my joy was short lived as I realized the animal was still alive and writhing in agony. The sight of the poor deer made me want to vomit and made me feel terrible about what I had done. The animal clearly wanted out of its misery, but I wasn't sure if I would be able to bring myself to kill the innocent animal. Finally, I steeled my nerves and pulled out my hunting knife. I walked over to the deer and cut its throat.

I wasn't sure if that was what I was supposed to do, but at that point, I had no clue what the proper thing to do was. I felt terrible for what I had done and wasn't sure if I would be able to do it again. One thing was for sure though, after everything I had put the deer through, I would do everything I could to reuse his body for other purposes.

My next problem was trying to figure out how I would get the deer back to my camp and protect the meat from wild bears and such. Slowly, an idea began forming. Water prevented the transfer of smell, so if I could store the meat in water, without spoiling the meat, I could hide it all from the other animals in the forest.

I slowly dragged the deer back to my camp. Once I got there, I dug a massive hole by pulling all the water out of the Earth in a specific location. That made the dirt turn to dust and sand and crumble in on itself. Before long, I had a massive pit about 10 feet deep and 10 feet wide. I coated the whole hole with a foot of solid ice and then filled the rest of the pit with water. This would keep the meat frozen and safe from animals.

Next was the most disgusting thing I had ever done. It took me the rest of the morning as well as the entire afternoon, but I slowly and methodically cut up the animal carcass and separated the edible stuff from the non-edible stuff. I cleaned off the bones and antlers and decided to keep them in case I wanted to make things with them later. I set up a proper drying rack for the skin so that it wouldn't rot and would instead be preserved. Using my waterpower's I was able to bless the meat, in a sense, to be waterproof and then dropped it into the pool of water. I then froze the surface of the pool so that nothing could enter it.

When I finally finished cleaning up my mess, I was a bloody mess, covered with deer guts and blood. I used water to clean up the campsite and carried the non-edible guts a few miles into the forest for wild animals to eat if they wanted to. I then walked down into the lake to wash myself off.

I returned to my camp and began working on cooking some of the meat for my dinner. When I took my first bite, I realized how delicious it was. After all the work I had spent killing, cleaning, and preparing the food made it taste better than it otherwise would have. At the same time though, I remembered everything that I had seen and done while preparing it and it almost made me want to vomit the meat right back up. Everything up until when I ate the meat had been a messy and disgusting affair.

It almost made me want to join Grover in being a vegetarian. I froze at that thought. I had been doing my best to avoid thinking about my old life and friends while I lived out here in the forest. If I thought about them, I would realize how lonely I truly was here, how much I missed everyone and wanted things to go back to the way they had been. I knew though, that they were all safer with me here, away from them. Dionysus didn't care about the campers, so if bad things started happening to some of them, he wouldn't do anything about it except maybe smile. Because of that, it wasn't safe for my friends if I was around. That thought though, did nothing for my loneliness. It just made me feel guilty.

This was my punishment for insulting Athena. I didn't like killing and gutting the deer, but if I wanted to live I had no choice but to do so. I didn't like being alone, away from my friends, but if I wanted to live, I had no other choice. Athena was a truly intelligent goddess, she knew what she had to do to push me away from my home and make me miserable. She herself couldn't care less about killing two mortals or hurting a few half-bloods if she needed to, as long as she could bring me down and hurt me she would do whatever it took.

After I finished my dinner I was exhausted. I decided to skip my meditation and go straight to bed. I made sure that all the meat was locked away in the ice-cold water pool I had created and dinner was completely cleaned up before heading into my tent and going to sleep.

**Okay, that is all. For now.**

**The next chapter will not be Percy's POV. At least that isn't the plan anyways. Things could always change, but who knows.**

**Anyways, this chapter was around 5000 words of story.**

**Just so you know, before you all start yelling at me about how inaccurate my hunting stuff is, just let me tell you I know NOTHING about hunting. Most of what I typed is stuff that made logical sense in my mind but might not have translated too well to paper, so to speak. If you wish to correct me, please do, I love learning new things and will use the information in future chapters, just please do so politely.**

**My plan for the next chapter is to show what is going at camp and on Olympus while Percy is missing. Also, depending on how long that ends up being, I might go as far as until Artemis and the hunt find Percy. Or however they end up meeting, I haven't quite decided on that part yet.**

**If you have questions, comments, suggestions, corrections, ideas, or anything else you want to say to me, leave me a review or a PM, please be respectful though, if you aren't respectful, I will probably just ignore you or provide public humiliation recognition in my next chapter, depends on my mood.**

**Also, as I mentioned earlier, I have a poll on my profile that it would be nice if you guys voted in.**

**Well, until next time, enjoy your lives and do other fun happy things.**


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6 time.**

**First and foremost, I am sorry about the delay with the last chapter. FanFiction got all weird and glitch or something and although my account claimed the chapter was published, there was no way to actually get to the chapter to read it. I sent the support people an email and still nothing got fixed. Finally I deleted the chapter and reposted it to see if that would work and it did. Hopefully I don't have this problem again, but if I do, I am apologizing for it now. Sorry.**

**As I told you all, this chapter will not be in Percy's POV, at least not the whole time. The end might be in his POV, I still haven't decided yet and I probably won't edit this author's note after I finished the chapter, so it will be a surprise to all of us.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own PJO or the related works.**

Grover POV

I felt terrible. As soon as Percy had left Central Park, I went to camp in order to wait for him to get back. He had said he was going to do something dangerous and stupid but he had also promised he would go back to camp if he survived. I wondered what he was going to do on Olympus and wondered if it had anything to do with his change in emotions.

I knew that Annabeth was going to break up with Percy and I felt bad for him. Once it had happened, his depression and sadness affected me. I could feel it through our link. I had hoped that over time it would die down and he would move on. I really wanted to be there and provide support for him and help him through it, but I had my job to do as well. Finally though, after a few weeks had passed, his depression left. Unfortunately, it was replaced with burning fury and hatred.

When the fury and hatred hit, it was so powerful even I was becoming angry. I had no clue what I was angry with or mad at, but I could feel myself beginning to get mad at everyone that tried to talk to me. As I was in the middle of an argument with a nature spirit in Central Park, Percy found me and made me break the empathy link.

I didn't really want to lose the connection to him, but he insisted. From the look in his eyes, I knew I didn't really have a choice. I finally relented and broke the link. Before he left, I made him promise to find me at camp when he finished whatever it was he was going to do and explain things to me.

With the empathy link broken, his anger was no longer affecting me. I apologized to the nature spirit and got to camp as quickly as I could. I waited for Percy, but he didn't show up at all that night. I was worried for him and so was Chiron. Chiron made me tell him what Percy had wanted to talk to me about, and when I had told him, he got even more worried. He decided to contact Percy's mother in case she had had contact with Percy. When he called though, he got no answer.

Finding that strange, he sent Argus and me to Percy's moms apartment to check on her and make sure things were all right. When I got to the apartment, Argus came with me in case there was trouble. We went and knocked on the door but got no response. I tried the knob and found it unlocked. That is when I began to get worried.

Percy and his mother had lived in New York long enough to know not to leave their door unlocked. It just wasn't safe. Carefully, I walked into the apartment and looked around. Nothing appeared to be out of place, but I couldn't help but feel dread. I walked through the house with Argus watching out for trouble until we came to the kitchen.

When I first saw the pile of bodies, I thought they were all dead and I almost passed out. Argus, however, went over and checked for signs of life. He signaled that Percy was still alive but his parents were dead. Since Percy was on top, I figured he had found his mother and stepfather dead and passed out from the emotional pain. Even without the empathy link, I could still feel some of the pain that Percy must have felt. Percy's parents were great people and deserved great lives. They didn't deserve to be dead, especially at such a young age.

Argus signaled the phone on the table and I understood what he meant. We needed to call Chiron and let him know what had happened. After explaining the situation to him, he sounded devastated as well. He promised he would send help for us.

About 45 minutes later, Chiron showed up in a wheelchair with several police officers and medics. I could tell from the looks on their faces that Chiron was heavily manipulating the mist around them. After about 30 more minutes, I left with Chiron, Argus, and Percy.

When we got back to camp, we set Percy up in the bighouse so we could all keep an eye on him and help him when he woke up. By this time, it was almost 2:00 in the morning and I was exhausted. I fell asleep at the desk in Percy's room while watching over him.

For the next several days, almost everyone in camp came to visit him. He made no signs of waking and I worried about what would happen if he never woke up. I would be devastated and so would many of the campers. I also knew it could cause trouble for the gods. From what I had heard, Poseidon seemed convinced that someone had had Sally and Paul killed. He said their deaths were too strange to be a natural thing. He had no clue who had done it, but if Percy died as a result, there was no telling what he would do.

Finally, after nearly a week had passed, Percy woke up. I'm pretty sure the whole camp heard him wake up as well. The sounds he made were terrible. Me and several of his other friends went into his room to try and comfort him, but he didn't respond to anyone or anything. After about 15 minutes, he fell back asleep and once more he showed no signs of waking.

For the most part, I had been spending most of my time with Percy. Every now and then I would have to leave for a little while to take care of some work, but whenever I did, there would be someone else who could take my place and watch him. As time passed though, my work kept piling up and Chiron insisted on me taking care of it. He put strict limits on when people could visit Percy and so Percy spent most of the time alone in his room.

That turned out to be a mistake. A few days after he first woke up, I walked into his room to find him gone. At first I thought he had woken up and was walking around, maybe going to the bathroom or something, but then I saw the note on the desk. All the letters people had written him and flowers he had been given had been pushed to the side. None of the letters were opened. In the center of the desk in their place was a letter addressed to Chiron and the rest of the camp.

I picked up the letter and ran to Chiron to show it to him. As I was leaving Percy's room though, I ran into Annabeth. She had been visiting him every day. She knew that the breakup had hurt him, but she still cared for him as a friend and wanted him to get better and be happy.

She saw my face and said, "Grover, what are you doing? Why are you in such a hurry? What's wrong?"

I looked at her, "Its Percy. He's gone."

"What? What do you mean gone? He has been out for a week and a half, he can't just be gone."

"Yes he can be," I said. I held up the letter so she could see it and said, "He left us a letter. I haven't looked at it yet because it is addressed to Chiron and the rest of the camp, but I'm sure that it isn't good. I was on my way to Chiron so he could read the letter."

She grabbed my arm and started dragging me down the hall, "Hurry up then, Grover, Chiron is just down this way."

Chiron saw our panicked faces and was about to ask us what was wrong when I handed him the letter. "Percy is gone and he left this on the desk for us," I told him.

Chiron took the letter and opened it. As he read it to himself, I could see the worry and panic grow in his eyes. When he finished reading it, he just stared blankly at the paper for several more minutes and several tears fell down his cheeks.

Finally, I broke the silence, "What did the letter say? What did Percy tell us?"

After several more seconds had passed, Chiron spoke, "Nothing good. Here, you read it, " he said, handing me the letter.

I stood and looked at the paper with Annabeth reading over my shoulder.

_Dear Chiron and Camp Halfblood,_

_ For reasons I cannot talk about, I must leave camp. Things were said and done that cannot be undone or forgotten. Thank you all for everything you have done for me, especially caring for me after the murder of my parents. For your own safety, I am now leaving camp and will probably never return. I hope you all live long and happy lives and are able to find true peace and comfort._

_Sincerely, Percy_

I was shocked. For several minutes, no one moved or said anything. I tried to understand what he meant by what he said, but I just couldn't comprehend it. He was leaving for our safety? What was he protecting us from? Why couldn't he be more specific about what the problem was and who or what was after him? What did he mean his parents were murdered? I know Poseidon thought that, but Percy wasn't one to make baseless accusations like that. If he said they had been murdered, then he truly believed that they had been murdered.

I turned to Annabeth to see if she had made anything out of the letter. When I looked at her, she seemed just as stunned as all of us. I was about to ask her about what she made of this when a bright flashed in and Lord Dionysus appeared in the room.

He took a look at our faces and said, "Well, aren't we all joyful today. What wonderful events have brought about this feeling of giddiness that pervades this wonderful camp?"

The sarcasm or maybe just the appearance of the director seemed to wake Chiron from his little trance. He turned to face Lord Dionysus and said, "Well, the good news is that Percy woke up. The bad news is that he disappeared and left behind a rather troubling letter."

"Well wasn't that nice of him," Dionysus droned, "to think I used to hate the boy. I think I might have to change my opinion seeing as his disappearing gives me one less brat to look after. However, I think I should take his letter and show the gods. For some reason, several of the gods actually like the little brat."

With that, he grabbed the letter from me and flashed away. I turned to Chiron and asked the question that had been on my mind since I read the letter, "So, what are going to do about this? We can't just let Percy disappear. It isn't safe for a demigod, especially a powerful one, to be on their own in the world."

Chiron sighed, "That may be true Grover, but we no longer have any way of actually tracking him. You said you broke the empathy link with him, which means we can't find him with that. Iris-messaging only works if you know the persons location, so we can't do that either. The only way we could track him down is if we sent out a group of people to actually look for him. From what I heard about his quest for Athena, he is capable of moving very fast very quickly, which means that hunting him down could be quite difficult."

Annabeth interrupted Chiron there, "Wait, if we are talking about hunting him down, can't we ask the hunters and Artemis to help look for him? I know they don't like boys normally, but Thalia considers Percy a good friend and Artemis even respects him a little. For us, we could send out a quest to find him, get a prophecy and search for him."

"No child, we cannot send a quest out for this unless the gods request it. Quests only work in godly matters. Since Percy is a demigod, in order for this issue to become a godly matter, we would need a god to assign the quest. As for Artemis and her hunters, they may search for him, but they have other duties they must accomplish as well," Chiron said.

I then got an idea, "Wait, I could ask nature spirits to tell us if they see him at all. If any of them see him and tell us, we could use that information to track him down. I could also try a tracking song to locate him."

I could tell Annabeth liked my ideas, but Chiron still appeared a little wary of sending campers out. Finally he spoke, "Well, we shall see what we can do. For not though, we can't do anything until after the gods have read and reacted to Percy's letter. They will have the final say in what is going to happen."

I sighed and wanted to speak up, but I wasn't sure what to say. I was still stunned that Percy had just left and only left us a note that troubled us to explain why. Finally Annabeth spoke up, "What about the other campers? What do we tell them? They all care about Percy and want him to be safe and happy. It won't take long for them to realize Percy is gone, and unless we have a plan ready when they find out, some of them might leave to look for him regardless of what we say."

Chiron looked deep in thought, seeming to contemplate Annabeth's question. He finally responded, "I will tell the campers about his disappearance at the campfire tonight. Hopefully by then the gods will be done discussing the matter and we will have a better understanding of what we need to do."

I really wanted to get to work searching for Percy immediately, but I knew that Chiron and Annabeth were right. We needed to wait for the gods to come to a decision on the matter before we could act. The whole situation was making depressed, so I left the bighouse and went to go spend some time with Juniper.

Zeus POV

Ever since Percy's mother and stepfather had died, Poseidon had been harassing me nonstop about finding who was responsible for it and punishing them. Today was no exception. I sat in my throne and sighed as he yelled at me and threatened me. Finally, I couldn't take it any more.

"Brother! Shut up already. Two mortals died. You standing here making random accusations against your fellow Olympians is not going to solve anything. There is no evidence that they were murdered, least of all by a god, so shut up and leave me alone."

Poseidon was about to respond when my son flashed in. I looked at him and sighed, "Dionysus, what are you doing here? You are supposed to be at camp, watching our children and keeping them safe."

He groaned before speaking, "I _hate _that camp. Why must you provide me with such a terrible punishment?" He sighed before continuing, "Anyways, I came here to tell you that Percy woke up. Thought you might want to know."  
>Poseidon perked up, "My son woke up? How is he? Is he all right? Does he need anything?"<p>

He continued rambling on for several minutes before Dionysus cut him off, "I have no clue if he is all right or not. From what I heard, he disappeared as soon as he woke up."

"WHAT? What do you mean he disappeared?" Poseidon exclaimed.

"Exactly what I said. I went into the bighouse and saw Chiron, Grover, and Annebelle all looking rather shocked and sad about something. They told me that Percy woke up, wrote a letter, and left. I figured you would be interested in this new information so I grabbed the letter and brought it here for you to read." He then held up the letter he ad in his hand.

Poseidon immediately took the letter from him and read it to himself. As he read the letter, I began to get worried, Poseidon's face was turning colors I didn't think possible and he appeared to be angrier than I had seen him in millennia. I wasn't sure what the letter said, but I was almost scared to find out.

When he finally finished, he stormed over to me and shoved the letter in my face. "Read it," he said.

I obliged and did so. As I read it, I wasn't quite sure what to make of it. I was not fond of the boy. Everyone knew that. I respected him for his actions, but his attitude and the way he treated the gods didn't sit too well with me. I knew how powerful he was, so when his letter said he was running from whatever was causing his problems, I was a little shocked. He wasn't the kind of person that would run away unless he had no other choice. I also knew what it was that Poseidon was upset about. Percy claimed his parents had been murdered. As much as I didn't want to believe it, Percy wasn't the kind of person to lie. He told the truth whether you liked it or not. That was part of what I didn't like about him. He spoke his mind with blatant disregard for the gods.

I sighed and then looked over at Poseidon, "Well brother, what do you want me to do about this? The letter is incredibly vague. Without more information to go on, there still isn't anything we can do."  
>Poseidon glared at me, "First, we need to find my son. I know that this is vague and only he has the answers to some of our questions. Since he is the Hero of Olympus, the least we could do for him is help him out here. I also want you to have some form of investigation into Sally's death. And that blowfish guy as well. If I had to guess, whatever killed them scared Percy away and made him believe that in order to keep his friends alive he had to leave camp. I want to know who or what is responsible for this so I can destroy them."<p>

I groaned. Poseidon was not going to let this go and if I didn't do _something_ a war could easily break out. I thought for a little bit on what I should do before answering, "Fine. We will search for him. If he enters my domain I will capture him and if he enters yours you will do the same. As for the search, I will mention this to Artemis and see if she can have her hunt be on the lookout for him as well. Once we find him, we can then deal with the problem of why he ran away. Happy?"

"No I am not happy. My son is missing and his family is dead. There is some powerful being after him making his life miserable. I am incredibly _un_happy right now. Why don't we have some of the demigods at camp search for him as well? We could issue a quest and get a prophecy to help us," he suggested.

"No campers need to get involved. From what Athena told me about her quest for him, he became much more powerful and better at staying hidden. The campers would probably have no chance at all of finding him, so it would only jeopardize their lives if we sent them out. If you really want to find him, send messages to the naiads in the country to keep a lookout for him. I will have Dionysus work with the other nature spirits to find him as well."

When I mentioned the naiads, Poseidon got a huge smile on his face. I guessed he hadn't thought of them yet. He grinned at me and said, "That is actually a good idea brother. For once. Now, I need to get back to my kingdom and send word to the naiads." With that, he flashed off of Olympus.

I gave a sigh of relief once he left. He had been driving me crazy. If Percy didn't show up soon to calm his father down, I was going to personally kill the boy. After a few minutes of peace, I called for Hermes.

He flashed in and looked at me, "What can I do for you father?"

"I need you to find Artemis and her hunt. When you find them, tell Artemis that I need her and Thalia on Olympus to talk with them."

"If you don't mind me asking, what do you need to talk with them about?" He asked me.

I contemplated on how much I should tell him. After a few seconds I decided to just tell him the truth, "Percy woke up and disappeared. I need to talk to them about looking for him."

Hermes frowned; I knew he was fond of Jackson, so the knowledge that he was missing was a little saddening for him. He gave me a nod, "Yes father, I will deliver the message and have them report to you immediately." With that he flashed out and left me once more to sit in peace and quiet.

Thalia POV

It was early afternoon and we had just finished lunch when Hermes flashed into the middle of the camp. I figured he had a message for Artemis so I went back to preparing my gear and talking to the other hunters. A few seconds later though, Artemis and Hermes walked up to me and pulled me aside.

Once we were out of earshot of the hunters, I turned to my mistress with a questioning look. She in turn was looking at Hermes with a questioning look. Finally, he broke the silence, "Father wants both of you on Olympus immediately. He said it had something to do with Percy. Well, that's all. Bye now."

He then flashed out, leaving me with my mistress in the forest. We walked back to the hunters and Artemis told them that we would be gone for a little bit. Urgent business on Olympus. The hunters nodded and then went back to their business. She then placed her hand on my shoulder and teleported us to the throne room.

When I opened my eyes, I saw my father relaxing on his throne. He looked rather tired and I wondered what was going on. I bowed before him and Artemis spoke up, "Father, why have you summoned us? And what does it have to do with Percy? Hermes was rather vague with the details."

My father looked at us for a few seconds before speaking, "Sorry for my appearance, Poseidon has been harassing me nonstop since Jacksons family died. Anyways, it appears that the boy finally woke up, but instead of sticking around and staying at camp, he wrote a short letter and then disappeared."

I gasped, "What! Percy is missing? What happened? Why?"

My father cut me off, "Yes he is missing. No one knows what happened, his letter is rather vague. Anyways, the reason I called you here is because Poseidon is forcing me to do something about the missing boy. I told him I would have the hunt keep an eye out for him. I know you have other duties and stuff, so I won't force you to solely look for him, but I would appreciate if you kept an eye out for him. The sooner the boy is found, the sooner Poseidon will calm down."

I nodded and was about to respond, but Artemis spoke first, "Why us? Why not just let the campers search for the missing boy. The hunt has more important things to do than search for some boy who decided to run away."

Zeus then spoke up, "Yes, well, the problem is, Percy might not have run away by choice. As I said, he left a letter. It is rather vague as to what exactly is going on, but it is rather clear that he believes his presence at camp would be putting hi friends in danger. He left no indication as to what was threatening him, but we are assuming it is the same thing that he claimed murdered his family."

I was rather shocked by this, "Wait, can you just give me the letter to read? I was friends with him, I might be able to make more of the letter than some people."

My father then handed me the letter and I read it. My father was right; it was rather vague. I did however get an idea, "He said things were said and done that couldn't be taken back. It sounds to me like he got into a fight with some immortal or other and is now suffering their wrath."

"Yes yes, I know that," my father said. "The thing is, we have no idea who it is he angered and why he angered them, we all know he isn't the kind of person to anger gods and immortals for no reason. Once we find him, we intend to find out exactly what is going on and what happened. What worries me is that if it IS one of the gods that is responsible for this, Poseidon will probably start a war over it."

"Exactly," a voice said. I looked over and saw a young girl standing by the hearth, poking at the flames with a stick. Hestia then continued, "Knowing Percy, he probably understands that a war would break out and he doesn't want that to happen. He would feel guilty and responsible for the entire war and every death the war brought. Is it not possible that he ran away not just to protect his friends at camp but to prevent a war as well?"

I looked at Lady Hestia and thought about that. It did seem like the kind of thing Percy would do. Give up everything he has to prevent a war and save his friends. I looked over at Artemis and saw her thinking about everything that had been said. Finally, she spoke, "That does indeed sound like something Perseus would do. However, the idea that one of the gods that he saved multiple times would do this to him is also rather hard to believe. I will look for the man and get answers to my questions. If the answers don't satisfy me, I will turn him into a jackalope and hunt him."

I grinned at my mistress, she had called Percy a man again. I knew she had respect for him, but it still surprised me that she called him a man. No other male got that much respect from her. She then turned to Hestia and spoke, "You sound as if you know a little about Percy's motives. Do you by any chance happen to know what is going on with him and why he left? Do you have any idea's about where he went?"

Hestia smiled sadly at her, "I know a little bit about what happened. I do not know the full story, but I can make a pretty good guess about what happened. What I know is not for me to tell though; it is Percy's life and his story. If you wish to know what happened, you must find him and ask him yourself. As for where he went, I do not know. I helped him get over his family's death and asked him what he was going to do. He told me was going to leave camp to protect his friends. That is all he told me. My guess is that he will hide from the gods as best he can. That means he will avoid the ocean and the sky. He will probably avoid people as well."

Artemis nodded, "Okay then, we will search the wilderness. Maybe the nature spirits can help us."

"I doubt that. Many of the nature spirits and minor gods and goddesses are rather fond of Percy. If he asked them to keep his passing them a secret, they would most likely listen," Hestia informed us.

I sighed; this was going to be a rather difficult hunt. I was ready to head out and begin searching for my friend. My father though, still had some questions for Hestia, "You mean you know what is going on with Jackson but you won't tell us? Why not? Who is responsible and what do you think happened?"

"I am sorry brother, I cannot tell you. If I could, I would have. As I said though, it is Percy's tale to tell." Lady Hestia then smiled at me, "Thalia, you are a good friend of Percy's, hopefully if you can find him, he will open up and tell you what happened. He is my favorite hero in a long time and it pains me to see him hurt after everything he has done for us." Her gaze then went over to Artemis, "Niece, I know you do not like boys, but if you find Percy and he tells you his story, trust him. He is not one to lie." With that, Hestia disappeared in a swirl of flames.

My father turned to look at us, "Well, that was all I needed you for. You are dismissed."

I turned to Artemis and we walked out of the throne room. She then teleported us right back to the hunter camp. At the moment, we were camping in a forest in Maine. After Artemis explained our mission and what we were hunting, we packed up and moved out.

Annabeth POV

After Grover left and went into the forest, I left in search of Kyle. I knew that he would help me out. At first, he had been worried about how Percy would take the news that I was with him now, but after Percy had shown no ill will towards us, he relaxed and came to like Percy. At least he tried to, but Percy was rather depressed and avoided us when he could. When I explained the situation to Kyle, he was worried. He knew that I was still friends with Percy and that his disappearance was hurting me.

Instead of trying to change the subject or something, we spent the afternoon discussing where Percy might have gone and why he left. We didn't come up with anything, but it was nice being with Kyle and helped me calm down a little.

That night at campfire, Chiron told the camp about Percy. As I expected, many of the campers were upset by this and tried to get permission to go and look for him.

Chiron was growing tired with the yelling and arguing, so he banged his hoof on the stone ground and got our attention. "I have been informed that Lady Artemis and her hunt are looking for Percy. The other gods are monitoring their domains in case he should enter one of them. I am under strict orders to not allow any campers to search for him. The gods believe that it would serve no purpose except to possibly endanger your lives. If they believed you could help find him, then they would allow you to search. Now, that is all for tonight. Rest on the problem and if you get any idea's that might be helpful, you can share them with me tomorrow. Off to bed with you all, curfew has passed."  
>With that, he left. I was rather upset by this. I really wanted to help look for Percy, but I knew there was no going against the gods. I had to hope that the hunt would find him and get him to explain why he left. Kyle sensed my discomfort and gave me a hug. He then walked me to my cabin and kissed me goodnight. I smiled at him and went to sleep.<p>

**Okay, so that is all for this chapter.**

**Now, I'm not sure if you were expecting to have all the Olympians discuss Percy's disappearance, but I decided against it. Mainly because the Olympians only gather together on solstices and emergencies. I didn't think this classified as an Olympian emergency, so I only had Zeus present with a few others showing up sometimes.**

**As for reactions to his disappearance, I wasn't quite sure how to do it. I don't think I did a great job, but I also couldn't think of how to do it better. Later on I may rewrite this chapter to make it better.**

**The next chapter will have the hunt hunting for Percy as well as a little more from Percy's POV.**

**Thanks for those who have voted in my poll. It is going pretty much how I figured it would, but I still wanted to get people's opinion. The poll is still open and will be for quite a while, but so far at least it hasn't surprised me.**

**Thanks for the reviews, views, and other good things.**

**If you want to tell me anything, whether it is good bad or indifferent, let me know in a review or PM.**

**Anyways, you guys are pretty cool people, so have fun and live life well.**


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

**Well, here goes.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own PJO or the associated works.**

Thalia POV

Months passed and we made no real progress on finding Percy. It was incredibly aggravating. The hunt prided itself on, well, hunting. Yet here was a single person who was successfully hiding from us. If he was traveling around, he left no trace of where he had gone. I figured that since no one could travel around and leave no trace, he must have settled down somewhere. The problem was finding him. He left no trace throughout the country and never travelled into the world.

His ability to hide from the gods and the hunt was impressive. The longer we looked for him, the more impressed the other hunters and Artemis were with him. The more impressive it was though, the more aggravated everyone became. The hunt was frustrated with Percy and his disappearing act. I was probably the most frustrated with it. I had to deal with the steadily angering hunt as well as the daily iris messages from Grover and camp asking about Percy. When we found Percy, I promised myself I would beat him up good for all the trouble he caused.

Initially, we had only searched places where we thought Percy might be. We travelled through forests and followed rivers and streams. None of the nature spirits we came across knew anything about Percy's whereabouts, and if they did know, they weren't telling us. After travelling and hunting for Percy for months, we began searching places we didn't think he would be, in the hopes that in an effort to evade us, he was staying in places we wouldn't expect.

We began that search in the drier regions of California and worked our way east to the plains and deserts of Texas. When we still had no traces of him, I got an idea. I searched for My Lady and found her sitting on a log, deep in thought. She saw me approaching and raised her head, "What is it Thalia? Have you gotten any idea's on his whereabouts?"

"Yes, My Lady," I said. "We started out searching in forests and by water and couldn't find him so we moved to the opposite, the desert. We still haven't found him. It got me thinking that maybe he is in both. In Oregon and Washington, there are some large mountains, and on the other side of them there is a rather large desert. That would provide Percy with the ability to stay in the desert and easily travel to a more comfortable area of forests and water whenever he wanted to. If he was somehow able to sense us coming, he could easily switch his location to a completely different climate to try and throw us off of his trail."

She nodded her head as she thought about what I had said, "That makes sense, but why Oregon or Washington? There are plenty of other area's with similar dramatic changes in the climate and landscape."

"Well," I began, "he is probably trying to stay far away from camp to make it harder to find him, so I wouldn't expect him to be in area's close to New York. Since the northwest is far away from there, it would make sense he would be staying in the region."

"Yes, I see your point," Artemis said. "Well then, tomorrow we will change our direction and head for Oregon. We will go through Colorado and Wyoming before turning west and going through Idaho to Oregon. Go and let the hunters know our plans and get ready to move out tomorrow."

"Yes, My Lady," I said. I bowed my head and walked off to get the hunters ready to move.

10 days later, we were camped outside of Saratoga Wyoming when I noticed something. Even though it was the middle of the night, I needed to tell Lady Artemis what I had noticed before I forgot. Quickly getting up, I ran out of my tent and ran over to her tent. I knocked on the tent and waited a few seconds before she stuck her head and looked at me.

"What is it Thalia? It's the middle of the night, couldn't this wait until morning?"

I shook my head, still excited about what I had noticed. "My Lady, I'm sorry about waking you up, but I noticed something. When was the last time we were attacked by a monster?"

She looked at me with a questioning expression before her face lit up, "Of course!" She exclaimed, "We weren't attacked by a monster at all in Colorado. Not even that, but I didn't sense any monsters that needed hunting either. That means that something or someone is busy there destroying them all. I can't believe I didn't notice this earlier. Thanks Thalia, if this turns out to be Percy who is destroying all the monsters; we might be able to find him now. My guess is that since there are no monsters at all, Percy must have been staying here for quite some time and the monsters in the area have been drawn to him."

I grinned, "Exactly. And since we have been finding monsters everywhere else we have been travelling, it seems as if he has been there for some time now. He might have done a good job of hiding from us up until this point, but the fact that he is a demigod and monsters are attracted to his scent will be what leads us to him."

"Precisely. Still, did you have to wake me up now to tell me this, couldn't you have waited until morning?"

"Sorry, My Lady. I was excited and couldn't hold it in. I needed to tell you and see if you agreed with my theory before I exploded from excitement. This has been a long hunt, but it should be almost done."

Artemis smiled at me, "Well, good job. I'm glad this hunt is almost done. Although it has been a challenge, it has also been frustrating. Also, I still want answers to all the questions I have for him. Now, go back to sleep, tomorrow, we will begin the final stages of the hunt and find Perseus Jackson."

I nodded, "Of course. Good night My Lady." I then walked back to my tent and fell asleep.

Since we knew he was staying in Colorado somewhere, we took it slow and carefully worked our way through the state, searching for Percy the whole time. I had hoped that we would find him quickly now that we had narrowed down our search for him, but Colorado is a large state and it took us a while to search through it all.

Our first pass through, we found no trace of him. That left us with two options, give up and move on to another location, or do another pass, except this time go even slower and look everywhere. If Percy was staying in one place and didn't travel far from it, it wouldn't be too hard to believe that we missed him on our first pass. Since this was our best lead on Percy's location we had found, we decided to do another pass through and go slower and check everywhere we could.

It was slow and tedious work, but we made our way through the state once more. About a week into our second pass through, we ran into a group of males, hunting in the wilderness. They had set up camp and were busy getting drunk when we ran into them.

One of the guys looked up and saw us. He grinned at us and said, "What a bunch of pretty girls like you doing out here in the wilderness? This is no place for your kind, but if you want to keep us company, feel free to join us." Him and his buddies then started laughing and casting dirty looks at all of us.

Artemis stepped forward and said, "You are not even worthy of being turned into a jackalope. Instead, how about a rabbit?" With that, she raised her hands, pointed at the group of drunken boys and shot them with a silver light. Instantly, they fell over and started shrinking. A few seconds later, they had been completely turned into rabbits and were staring at us in fear.

Lady Artemis then turned to us, "This hunt for Perseus has been stressing you out, so relieve some of that stress by hunting these rabbits." She then turned to the cowering rabbits, "You have five minutes to flee before the hunt begins, I would suggest you run away as fast as you can if you want to have even the slightest chance of survival."

The group of five rabbits instantly started squeaking in terror before hopping off in different directions. Artemis turned to us, "Well, unfortunately, there are only five of them, that means there aren't enough for everyone to hunt one of them. Thalia, Phoebe, Lacey, Megan, Katy. You will each hunt one of them down. Whoever gets back last will have to clean up after dinner and do laundry before we leave tomorrow. Everyone else, set up camp here for the night, we will continue the search tomorrow."

The five of us each gathered together and chose a different rabbit to follow. We turned towards the direction we had seen our rabbit flee in, and prepared to chase after it. On Artemis's signal, we all took off.

Normally, hunting isn't too hard, but when we have to find a specific animal, it increases the challenge. I couldn't just kill any rabbit; I had to find a specific one. The only way to distinguish it would be to look at its back. Since Artemis had turned the guy into a rabbit, it would have a silver streak on its back differentiating it from the other rabbits in the area.

As I moved through the forest, I let my senses guide me for any sign of the rabbit. I followed in the direction it had fled, and before long I could hear the sounds of a small animal scurrying about. I readied my bow and aimed towards the sound, waiting for the animal to show itself so I would know whether it was my target or not.

Several seconds later, I saw a rabbit jump out of the brush and try to hop away. I looked and saw that it had a silver streak going down its back so I prepared to fire. Before I could fire though, someone else's arrow impaled the rabbit and killed it. For a few seconds I was stunned; not many mortals hunted with bows and arrows anymore, and this was definitely a mortal arrow. I decided I would manipulate the mist to take the rabbit from whoever it was that had killed it.

As I was about to walk up and claim the rabbit as mine, the person who had shot it walked into the clearing. It was a male with long black hair with a few gray streaks in it. He had sea green eyes as well.

I gasped, "Percy?"

The man looked at me and cursed. He then turned and ran.

Percy POV

The deer meat lasted for a while, but I knew eventually I would need to go hunting again. The idea of hunting reminded me of how I had killed the deer and how I didn't want to do that anymore. If I was going to hunt, I needed to be able to kill the animal in one shot. I began spending more time with my archery training and found that I was improving quite rapidly.

By the time my deer meat ran out, I was actually rather skilled with my bow. I wasn't always hitting bull's-eyes, but I did hit them a lot and the rest of my shots weren't far off. I had begun to find that practicing my archery was an enjoyable thing to do. I still kept up my sword skills, but I didn't have much use for them, except the occasional monster attack.

Most days, I had a rather simple schedule. I would get up and run for a while. Then I would have breakfast. After that I would Make sure my camp was clean before doing a little bit of practicing with my sword. After that, I would do archery until I wanted lunch. After lunch, I would work on my waterpower's and then do more archery. After dinner, I would meditate for a while and then go to sleep.

As each day passed, I found myself getting more skilled and more depressed. It was a rather boring way to live. I would do the same thing everyday just because I had nothing else to do. There was no reason to work on my skills since I wasn't planning on leaving and needing to use my skills. I was also lonely. I had always enjoyed the company of people.

After growing up with no friends and always being kicked out of schools, I had begun to believe I could live life without any friends. Once I found out I was a demigod and went to camp though, that all changed. I finally learned what it was like to have friends and I never wanted to let them go. I would do anything for them. Unfortunately, in order to protect them and keep them safe I had to leave them. Now I was back to being lonely, except this time I was lonely and had the knowledge of what it was like to have true friends. Every day, I found myself getting lonelier and lonelier. I wasn't sure how long I would be able to last on my own, but at the same time I didn't want to die. If I died, I wouldn't be able to protect my friends if they ever needed it. Then again, the way I was now, I would probably never know if they were in danger and needed my help.

The lonelier I got, the harder I trained. I would put more effort into everything I did to try and hide from the loneliness. Eventually I wouldn't be able to improve anymore and once that happened, I had no clue what I would do. I figured I would end up meditating all day at that point. Meditation helped me calm down and forget all of my problems. I could just sit and let my mind go blank. I would be able to notice all the details in the forest and everything that was going on. I would close my eyes and my water sense would show me a picture of the forest surrounding me.

I had gotten so good at sensing water; I could see detailed pictures of my surroundings using it. It was almost like seeing with my eyes, except without the color. Some mornings when I would run, I would do the entire run with my eyes closed, travelling just with my water sense for guidance.

By the time my deer meat ran out, I was spending over half of my waking hours with my eyes closed. I could train, fight, and shoot without my eyes. It became a kind of game for me, constantly switching between how I saw the world. My water sense showed me everything around me, but my eyes showed me the finer details and brought color into the world. I then began working on using them both together.

It was strange at first, seeing in two different ways at the same time. I would get headaches if I tried to do it for too long. As time went by though, I found it easier to do and I could do it for longer.

The night I cooked the last of my food, I saw a face in the fire. It was a young girl, maybe eight years old, and she gave me a small smile before speaking, "It won't be long. They will find you."

I blinked before looking into the flames again. The face was fading away, but I recognized it, "Lady Hestia?"

She girl smiled at me once more before vanishing from my fire, leaving me to wonder about what she had said. She had told me it wouldn't be long until they found me. I didn't know who they were or how long I had, but I didn't want to be found. I decided I would move my camp elsewhere. The next day I would start packing things up and gathering any food or supplies I would need before moving on. I hoped to be gone in a few days, hopefully before I was found.

The following day I was hungry. I was out of deer meat so I had only eaten plants for breakfast and lunch. I had done some training and packed up some of my stuff. I decided to go out and hunt some small animal to eat for dinner and then the next day I would leave. I wasn't sure where I would go, but I knew I had to leave if I wanted to avoid being found.

I grabbed my bow and headed into the forest, searching for a rabbit or a squirrel or something to hunt. I opened up my water sense and looked around for a little while before finding something that appeared to be a rabbit scurrying towards me. As soon as it sensed me, it froze and jumped into the brush nearby. I readied my arrow and backed away a bit, hoping the animal would come back out and give me a clear shot. After waiting for a few minutes, the rabbit indeed came back out again. Immediately, I fired my arrow.

It was a great shot, piercing the rabbit straight through its heart. I was glad it died quickly unlike the deer had. I admired my shot for a few seconds before going forward to pick it up. That is when things went wrong.

"Percy?" I heard a voice question me. I recognized the voice immediately and looked up to see the electric blue eyes of my friend Thalia.

I cursed, turned around, and ran. I cursed myself for my carelessness. I had been so focused on the rabbit; I had ignored the presence of Thalia. I felt out with my senses and noticed a group of people a mile or so away. Probably the hunters, I thought.

I wasn't sure what to do or where to go. Escaping from a huntress in the wilderness was not going to be easy. If I did escape, all of my stuff was at my campsite still and I wouldn't be able to go back to get it because the hunters would certainly be expecting that. I cursed myself again. Hestia had tried to warn me, but I had ignored it, hoping I could spend a little more time in my new home.

I was so lost in my thoughts of how I had allowed the hunters to find me; I failed to notice that Thalia was chasing me towards a certain location. I looked up and tried to take in my surroundings and found myself running right into the hunter camp.

For the umpteenth time I cursed myself and my stupidity. I tried to change direction and run away, but it was too late. Artemis had seen me. I knew that no matter how much stronger I had gotten; I didn't stand a chance against the entire hunt and Artemis. I briefly considered fighting them all anyways, but I figured that would just get me in more trouble than I was already in. I knew I had lost.

With a sigh, I stopped running and bowed to the goddess, "Hello Lady Artemis. I take it that you and the hunters are what Lady Hestia was warning me about?"

Artemis glared at me and all the hunters surrounded me, in case I decided to try and escape. They all had their bows raised and pointed at me except for Artemis who spoke, "You have led us on quite the hunt you know. It has been quite some time since this hunt began and it took us forever to find you. Now, as I'm sure you noticed seeing as you stopped trying to run, there is no escape from here unless I allow it. I will not let you leave until you have answered my questions, so start talking and explain to me why you left."

I shifted uncomfortably on my feet and looked around. The hunters were all glaring at me, Thalia the worst. I sighed, "I would rather not discuss why I left, but if you insist, can we at least do it in private? I would rather not explain everything to everyone here, it could cause all sorts of unneeded problems."

"Fine, but Thalia will be a part of the conversation as well." She then walked towards a tent and gestured for me to follow her. Thalia walked up to me and grabbed my arm to drag me into the tent. When she grabbed my arm, she also gave me a massive shock, standing my hair on end and making let out a small yelp. The hunters all laughed at me while Thalia gave me a cold smile before continuing to drag me into the tent.

When I looked around the tent, I found myself in a tent almost identical to the one I had been in the first time I met the goddess. There were pelts all over the floor and Artemis was sitting in the back of the tent waiting for me and Thalia. Thalia went and sat by Artemis while I sat down facing both of them.

After staring at me for several seconds, Artemis spoke, "Well? You said you would explain everything in private, so explain before I turn you into a jackalope and set my huntresses after you."

I looked at the goddess and then at Thalia before speaking, "Well, as for why I left, it wouldn't be safe for my friends if I was to remain at camp. After having my parents killed, I knew that my friends were in danger of being hurt as well if I stuck around, so I left. That's all there is to it. Now if you don't mind, can I return to my camp now?"

Artemis glared at me, "No. You already told us that in your letter. What we want are answers. Who killed your parents? Most of us believe that you angered a god or goddess and it was one of them. If that is true, why did you anger them, who was it, and why didn't you tell anyone?"

I sighed, "I would rather not answer those questions. Well, I suppose I can answer the last one. I didn't tell anyone because I didn't want a war to break out because of me. If you want to know who I angered and why, ask Lady Hestia. She knows."

Artemis looked at me and seemed to ponder what facial expression to look at me with. I saw anger, sadness, and pity all appear before she masked her face with a cold look. "My aunt won't tell us anything. She said to ask you if we wanted to know the truth. She said it isn't her place to tell."

I smiled, "Well, I feel she has every right to tell you seeing as she is the one who showed me the truth to begin with. She might not know what I did as a result of what I learned or the consequences of my actions, but I'm sure she has a pretty good idea of what happened. If you insist on hearing it from me though, I will tell you exactly what happened, under certain circumstances of course."

"You, boy, are in no position to be making demands of me," Artemis spat at me, "I am a goddess and if you do not answer me, I will have my huntresses hunt you to the ends of the Earth."

I glared at her, "Go right ahead. At this point, if I died, it would probably be the best thing that could happen. My friends would no longer be in danger due to my foolish decision. If, however, you wish to know my story, then you will agree to my conditions and I will tell you. I do not fear you Olympians. All I ask for is a little respect. Just because you are immortal and all-powerful doesn't mean you are any better than the rest of us mortals."

Artemis was practically glowing with anger. I thought she would vaporize me on the spot for my little outburst; when I looked at Thalia, it appeared she was thinking the same thing because she was looking at me with shock and a little fear. After a few moments, Artemis regained enough composure to speak, "Fine. Tell me your conditions and I will think about it. If your story doesn't satisfy me though, I will follow through on my threat, boy." She spat the last word at me and continued to glare at me.

I sighed, I really shouldn't be angering any more gods, I just really don't want my story to be spread around at all. That would just cause more problems. "Fine, my only condition is that you tell no one about my story. Swear it on the Styx and I will tell you my story."

"Why would I promise that? Everyone wants to know why you left and what your story is. How can you expect me to promise not to tell anyone, especially my father?"

I gave her a cold look, "Because, as Lady Hestia told you, it is my story to tell. No one has the right to tell it except for me. If I decide more people and gods need to hear the story, then I will tell it to them. Right now though, everything is too recent to be made public knowledge. It would start a war if my father found out. I can guarantee that."

"So why not make me swear to not tell your father?"

I sighed, "Because, once gods more people begin learning my story, it will spread and if everyone except my father knows, he will start picking up rumors and believe things that aren't even true making the situation worse. I will make you a deal though. After I have told you my story, if you want me to, I will tell the council of the gods my story. It will be your decision."

Artemis seemed to contemplate my deal for a little bit before answering, "Fine. I agree to your terms and swear on the Styx to keep you story to myself." She then turned to Thalia, "Your turn, if you want to hear the story, swear on the Styx, otherwise you will have to leave."

Thalia didn't look to thrilled at the idea, but she too swore on the Styx. Now that they were sworn to secrecy, I figured I should tell them my story before they killed me.

I took a deep breath and began, "First of all, please don't interrupt me until I am finished. I will tell the story as quickly as I can and then you can ask me questions. Deal?" They nodded their heads so I started.

"As Thalia knows, and maybe you as well Artemis, Athena sent me on a quest to earn her approval. As you also may or may not know, when I returned from my quest, Annabeth had a new boyfriend and I was devastated. Well, I wanted her to be happy so I didn't object or fight against it or cause problems. I decided to accept my fate and move on. Unfortunately, moving on was rather hard.

"I found myself spiraling into depression before long. After a few weeks, Lady Hestia approached me. She told me that she had seen my depression and thought something was amiss so she had investigated. She then showed me what she had found.

"She showed me Athena bribing Aphrodite into making Annabeth fall in love with Kyle while I was away on my quest. She said the only reason I was on the quest was to keep me away from Annabeth until she had found a new love.

"Needless to say, I was rather upset by this. I stormed to Olympus and confronted Athena to make her explain why she hated me so much and what I had done wrong. She informed me that because I was a child of Poseidon, she hated me and wanted me away from her daughter. I informed her that passing grudges onto the next generation was a stupid thing to do and called her unwise. She then cursed me.

"As her way of getting revenge for calling her stupid, she killed my parents. I knew that she would find ways to hurt my friends as well. It would appear accidental, but I would know better and would feel guilty for it. She took my fatal flaw and used it against me. This left me with no choice but to run away so that my friends would be safe. The end."

As I told my story, I could tell that both Thalia and Artemis wanted to interrupt me multiple times. I just continued talking before they got the chance. Once I finished, they just stared at me for a few minutes before Artemis broke the silence.

"I don't believe you. My sister would not do that. If the best you can come up with is a lie about my sister, then I will turn you into a jackalope and personally hunt you down." Artemis was glowering at me the whole time she spoke.

I stared into her silver eyes without flinching and then spoke, "I swear on the Styx that what I told you is the truth." Thunder rumbled in the background, confirming what I had said. "If you still do not believe me, then call Lady Hestia down here and have her show you the truth just as she did for me."

I could tell Artemis was having some internal struggle. After I had sworn on the Styx and not died, she had to accept that I had told the truth, but at the same time, she couldn't believe that Athena had done what I said she did. Thalia was looking almost as pained as Artemis. Finally, Thalia spoke, "So you left because if you didn't Athena would hurt your friends, make it look like an accident so no one would suspect her, and you would feel the pain of guilt of it. I suppose that makes sense, but is it really true that Annabeth is in a fake relationship now?"

I sighed, "If that is what you want to call it, then yes it is. Aphrodite is the goddess of love, so she can manipulate people's feelings if she wants to. Although it isn't natural love, it is love all the same."

Thalia glared at me, "Why didn't you tell Annabeth the truth about her relationship? You are her friend, it your responsibility to tell her the truth about these things!"

"Well, if I did tell her the truth, she probably wouldn't believe me. She would think I was lying to get back together with her. If she did believe me, what could she do about it? She would still love the guy and not me because of Aphrodite's meddling. All it would do is make her miserable and I did not want to do that to her."

Thalia bowed her head, acknowledging my point. Next to her, Artemis spoke again, "Fine, I suppose I now have no choice but to believe you, but I want the full details of your confrontation with Athena before I make any decisions regarding you."

"Well, can't you just pull memories out of my mind or something? I mean Lady Hestia has shown me memories that way before, can you do that as well?"

Artemis seemed to consider this, "Yes I can, but you would have to grant me access to your mind in order for that to happen. Do you trust me to do that and not hurt you?"

I thought about that and nodded my head, "I suppose so."

"Fine, concentrate on the memory and I will pull it out and view it myself."

I did as she instructed and thought about when I had gone to Olympus to confront Athena. Artemis placed the palm of her hand on my forehead and I felt a small tingling sensation travel through my mind. We sat like that for several minutes before she pulled her hand off my head and looked at me sadly.

"I did not want to believe you. I wished to believe you were lying and stretching the truth and leaving out details to hide your guilt, as a male would do. I didn't want to believe my sister and fellow maiden would do something as stupid as you claimed she did. It seems however, that you spoke the truth. I apologize for the actions of my sister, she should not have done that, especially not to you, the Hero of Olympus."

I shook my head, "You do not need to apologize to me for you did nothing wrong. I am the one who messed up by calling the wisdom goddess stupid. I should not have let my anger get the best of me and snapped like that. If I hadn't done that, my parents would be alive and I could live at camp with my friends. It was my rash actions that have brought about my problems and in order to prevent more people from suffering because of me, I decided to live here in the forest and be a hermit until I die."

Thalia seemed to be thinking about something and finally spoke, "Well, why not tell Dionysus about your predicament. As camp director, he would then have to prevent Athena from hurting your friends."

I sighed, "Dionysus hates his job and hates the campers. If I told him the truth, he wouldn't do anything differently. He would pretend I never told him anything and let the campers be hurt anyways. If I am to stay with my friends, I would need the protection of a god who actually cares about their charges." I then turned to Artemis, "Anyways, I promised you I would tell the council of the gods my story if you wanted me to, so what is your decision? Should I tell them all and see if a war breaks out over this, or should it remain a secret?"

Artemis looked at me with a look of deep thought on her face before speaking, "No, don't tell the gods. At least not yet. Zeus would be on Athena's side and with Zeus you would get many gods on her side. Chances are the war would be split down the middle of the gods and create all sorts of unnecessary death. For now, it is best to keep this a secret. However, now that you have been found, the gods will want to do something with you, so I have a question for you. How have you survived the past couple of months?"

I wasn't sure what she was getting at, but I explained about my campsite and how I had lived. I told her about my training and my meditating. Pretty much everything. When I was done, Thalia looked at me and spoke, "You sound like a hunter."

Artemis grinned, "That's what I was thinking. Since the gods won't let you live alone out here, you need to go somewhere. If you go to camp, you probably would be putting the campers in danger due to Dionysus's lack of care for them. I do however, have an idea of where you could stay with the protection of a goddess who cares about her charges."

I paled as I realized what she was talking about. Thalia seemed to realize as well and was looking at me with a little pity and grinning evilly at me simultaneously. "You don't mean I would join the hunt do you? That would not be good. The hunt hates males, if I were to join, my life would be rather unpleasant."

"Well, in order for you to join, certain things would have to be done, but it could work out. You would need to stay away from my hunters romantically and if you didn't I would kill you. You would need to pledge your loyalty to me. I would need to get my fathers permission as well. But it could possibly work out."

I gulped, "I suppose you aren't really giving me a choice are you? Fine then, I suppose it will be nice to be around people again, even if they all hate me. One thing though, Aphrodite said she wouldn't mess with my love life for a while, but eventually she will probably get back to messing with it. I can't really tell not to, but if you want this to work it might be a good idea to make she knows not to mess with me."

"That is probably a good idea Perseus. After I get my fathers permission, I will make sure to talk to her about that. As for everyone hating you, well maybe you will get over it. I don't hate you and I'm pretty sure Thalia doesn't either, but the rest of them will probably give you a hard time. Anyways, I need to go report to my father about this before we do anything else. You should go with Thalia and meet the hunters. Have fun." With that, she disappeared in a flash of silver light, leaving me alone with Thalia.

**Wow, that was a long chapter.**

**Well, first things first, it may be a while before I update again. I have kind of been neglecting my other story for a little bit, so I will update a few times before this one. Also, it is Easter weekend and although I'm not particularly religious, my family is, so I will be busy with that stuff. Also I will be out doing yard work for a while and might go and see the hunger games. **

**I will however promise you that I will update within a week. So don't worry too much.**

**Well, if you have anything to say, let me know in a review or PM.**

**Thanks for reading and have fun until my next update.**


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8.**

**Well, I was reading back through my story and noticed several things that I need to address in my writing. Since no one pointed them out to me in reviews, I will not mention them here either. I just find it interesting to read through my story and realize things that I wrote that I could easily add more to in the future of this story. Have fun figuring out what those things are, and if you do succeed, you can have virtual waffles. And bacon.**

**Anyways, back to my story.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own PJO or the other books and whatnot relating to it.**

Artemis POV

I teleported myself to Olympus to inform my father about finding Perseus and the parts of the conversation I was aloud to talk about. I knew he wouldn't be happy, but at the same time I knew it was for the best. As I walked through the streets of Olympus, I prepared myself for the worst. If Poseidon was present, there was no telling what he would do when I refused to tell him what had happened to his son. After a few minutes of walking, I found myself in front of the throne room doors.

Bracing myself for the coming conversation, I pushed open the throne room doors and walked in. I took a quick look around to see who was present and saw my father, Hermes, and Hestia. Hermes appeared to be delivering some message to my father, so I just waited in the middle of the throne room for them to finish up.

Hestia was tending to the hearth, but when she saw me enter, she looked at me and smiled. I remembered what Perseus had told me about Hestia warning him, so I figures she knew exactly why I was here. I returned her smile and then noticed my father was looking at me.

"Daughter, why are you here? Shouldn't you be out looking for that Jackson kid?"

"Well father, after searching for several months, the hunt and I have finally found him. We interrogated him and got him to explain his situation. However, he made me swear on the Styx not to tell anyone, so I cannot tell you what I learned."

My father was glaring at me, "Artemis, the whole point of finding the boy was so that we could all learn his story and why he left. Are you meaning to tell me that you are intentionally disobeying my orders?"

I took a nervous breathe before responding, "Father, I had no choice. He wouldn't tell me anything until I swore not to tell anyone else, so I can't tell you what he said. I will however tell you that should Poseidon ever learn the truth a war could break out. He is being threatened by an Olympian and ran away to prevent his friends from coming to harm. That is all I can tell you."

He glared at me some more before sighing, "Fine. I am not the least bit happy about this, but since you won't tell me what I want to know, I will have to punish you."

I paled, but before I could speak, Lady Hestia did, "Brother, will you punish me as well? I too have not told you Percy's story. It would be unfair to only punish your daughter but not me. Besides, as I told you months ago, it is Percy's story to tell, no one else's."

I smiled gratefully at her before returning to look up at my father. He sighed and spoke, "Fine, you shall not be punished, but we still need to decide what to do with him. You said that you found him so I am now ordering you to send him back to camp."

"About that father, if Percy is at camp, all of his friends and fellow campers will be in danger so it would be best if he wasn't sent back there."

He glared at me, "Well what do you propose we do then? We can't just send him back out into the wilderness alone, Poseidon would never allow it plus he should help us gods, not run from us. If you won't send him to camp, then what do you think should be done with him?"

I closed my eyes and tried to find the best way to tell my father my idea. I knew he wouldn't like it, but I needed his permission to do it. I took several deep breaths before answering, "I think that he should join the hunt."

For several seconds, there was silence. My father looked as if he was trying to swallow something unpleasant, or thank his brothers, or something of that caliber of unpleasantness. As what I had said began sinking in, he appeared to move to more of a confused and angry face. Aunt Hestia on the other hand, appeared as if she had expected this, or at least thought it was a possibility anyways. She smiled at me, letting me know that she was on my side, and then turned to face father.

Finally, he spoke, "No. You are the maiden goddess Artemis. The hunt is your domain because they, like you, are maidens. Jackson is a boy and has no place in your hunt. I also don't trust him there, he has done nothing but cause me problems and if he joins the hunt, the problems he can cause would be rather limited and I don't doubt his ability to cause them."

"What are you saying father? What problems will he cause? And how can you say he only causes you problems? He prevented a war when he was twelve. He brought your daughter back to life a year later. The following winter he rescued me, assuring that we would prepare for war against the titans at that point. He then helped protect Camp Halfblood from an attack from the labyrinth. A year later, he led the camp in its defense of Olympus and defeated Kronos. He then was one of the seven to help us defeat Gaia. How can you accuse him of only causing problems?"

He glared at me, "He might have done some impressive things, but his attitude towards the gods is incredibly inappropriate. He treats us with little respect and has the nerve to tell us to change our ways. I would kill him myself if it wouldn't cause a war to break out. As for what kind of trouble he could cause, think about it: One male surrounded by twenty or so attractive females and a goddess. He is bound to cause trouble eventually."

I groaned, "Just because you can't keep your hands off of women doesn't mean that all males are that way. Sure, I used to think that, but Perseus has shown himself to be quite different from how I have pictured males to be. As for his attitude towards the gods, how can you expect him to respect you if the first thing you do when you learn about his existence is to accuse him of stealing your master bolt with no evidence to back it up? You spent some time actually trying to kill him, you accused him of a crime he didn't commit, and when he saved us all anyways, you never apologized or admitted to having made a mistake.

"It is not that he doesn't respect the gods, it is that he only shows respect to the gods who he has deemed worthy of respect. The gods who don't hate him for no reason. Also, just because he doesn't show you respect doesn't mean he doesn't respect you. He understands your position and respects you for it, but he doesn't treat with that respect because you don't treat him with respect. After everything he as done for you and the rest of the gods you still refuse to respect him, instead complaining about him all the time.

"Now, back to my request of having him join the hunt. He wouldn't be able to join as my huntresses have because he is not a woman. I can however have him swear his fealty to me. By doing so, he could travel with the hunt allowing him to always be within range of the gods. If you send him back to camp, it won't take long for him to find some way to sneak out and disappear again. If that did happen, I can assure you he wouldn't be found again. If you leave him to wander on his own in the wilderness and around the country, you can probably imagine the kinds of things he could do, if you can't, just let your paranoia run wild and you will understand. If you want Perseus to be under the control of the gods, then you should let him join. If you don't care what about what he is doing and what kind of trouble he is getting into, then leave him to the wilderness once more."

I concluded my rant and watched my father think about what I had said. Sure, I didn't actually think Perseus would get into trouble if he was left alone in the wilderness, but if I wanted my father to accept my proposal, he needed to believe it was a possibility. I looked over at Aunt Hestia and saw that she was smiling at me. I knew that she was fond of Perseus, so I smiled back at her.

Before my father could respond to what I had said, Hestia spoke up, "Well I think that this is a fine idea. I am rather fond of Percy, so I will feel better knowing he has a home and friends."

That seemed to get my father to make his decision. No one liked to go against Hestia because she was such a nice and caring goddess, so her opinion was often enough to sway the mind of Zeus when he wasn't quite sure which option he wanted to go with.

He heaved a sigh before responding, "Fine. If that is what you all want and think is best for Olympus then you can have him join the hunt. However, if he steps a foot out of line, I will personally kill the boy. Now hurry up and get back to you hunt before I think of a reason to change my mind."

I smiled and bowed my head, "Thank you father."

I then turned to look at aunt Hestia who was smiling at me, "Aunt Hestia, I promise that Perseus will be safe with the hunt, and if the hunters ever warm up to him, he might even be happy again." I then walked out of the throne room and went off to Aphrodite's temple.

As I walked though the streets towards her temple, I tried to think of the best way to get her to listen to me. Knowing that she didn't like me and enjoyed messing with Perseus's love life was going to make this a rather challenging conversation. After several minutes, I found her temple and knocked on the doors announcing my presence.

Ares answered the door. I almost laughed in his face when I realized that Aphrodite had him running about answering doors for her. For being the god of war, he was incredibly whipped when it came to his love life. He saw my expression and glared at me, "What do you want?" He sneered. "Lady Aphrodite hates you so why are you here bothering her?"

I saw him checking out my body so I punched him in the face. He might be Aphrodite's plaything, but he was still a man-whore. "Get lost Ares. I need to speak to Aphrodite in private."

He glared at me and then smirked, "Oh yeah? What's in it for me?" He then began checking me out again.

I grabbed an arrow and shoved it into the soft skin under his mouth. He opened his mouth to scream and I laughed because I could see the arrow tip in his mouth. "I will make you a deal, you leave now and I won't tell father about how you were just looking at me. You know how protective he is of me. Also, you might want to go and find my brother to take care of your jaw, that is a rather serious wound you have."

As soon as I mentioned telling father, he paled and left. He might be an idiot, but he knew better than to anger his father. I smirked at his retreating form and then walked into the temple.

As soon as I had closed the doors, I heard Aphrodite call out, "Ares, honey, who was at the door? What did they want?"

I laughed and responded, "Well dear sister, I was at the door. As for what I want, I would like to have a private discussion with you."

I could hear Aphrodite groan from wherever she was, but she walked in all the same. She looked at me in disgust and spat, "Unless you are here to tell me that I am right about love, get lost. Also, what did you do with Ares?"

"Ah, Ares, he was looking at me in a way I didn't like, so I sent him to my bother for healing. And I am not here to say you are right, because as we all know, love only hurts people and gets in the way. It is completely unnecessary. Now, I have come here to talk to you about Perseus Jackson."

She paled a little at the mention of Perseus, but then she got a big smile, "You say love is unnecessary, but here you are to talk to me about a man. Well, what can I do for you little sister?"

"Okay, I hate you and you hate me, so I'm going to cut to the chase here. I know what you planned with Athena with regards to his love life. I know how you broke him and Annabeth up. Now, if you don't want a full-fledged war on your hands with Poseidon trying to send you to Tartarus, you will swear here and now on the river Styx that you shall never again interfere with his love life. That includes making my hunters fall for him. Am I clear?"

Aphrodite appeared to be depressed, angry, and scared at what I had said. After thinking for several minutes she responded, "I don't know how you know all this, but I am assuming you found him finally and got him to tell you the truth. I didn't want to do it, you know, but Athena is not someone you want to have as an enemy so I agreed with her before she began threatening me. As for Percy, I do not currently plan on playing with his love life anymore. Him and Annabeth was supposed to be my masterpiece, but it didn't end up working because Athena refused to get over her hatred of the boy. I suppose I could swear to your demands, but I am curious as to why you are doing this. You make it sound as if he will be travelling with you and the hunt or something."

I sighed, "I'm not sure how much you know about his reaction to the news that Athena had plotted all this behind his back, but do to this, it is no longer safe for him or his friends if he remains at camp. Dionysus wouldn't protect them at all. Father also doesn't want him wandering on his own because he is afraid that he will cause trouble or something. I have offered to let him travel with the hunt under certain circumstances. To ensure that this works without problem, I need to know that you will not be interfering with his emotions, especially love. Now, regardless of what you were planning to do with his love life, as you have shown with the incident with Athena, you are more than willing to change your mind on the matter. I cannot have this continue, so swear on the Styx or I will inform Poseidon of what you did."

"I do not know exactly what he did during his confrontation with Athena, but from his face when he came to talk to me, I could tell it hadn't gone well. As soon as I heard about his family, I knew it was Athena's doing. It saddens me how much hatred she holds towards him, but there is nothing I can do about that. Fine, I swear on the Styx to never again interfere with Percy's love life."

Thunder boomed in the background and Aphrodite continued, "Now, I do not like you and I have just sworn to never play with Percy's love life, a love life that I once promised to have lots of fun with, so I am not in a good mood. If you would kindly leave, I would appreciate it greatly."

I nodded my head, "Thank you Aphrodite, I will be leaving now." I then turned around and walked out of her temple in search of Athena.

I really didn't want to confront Athena because she had always been my favorite sister. I didn't want to think that she would hurt my hunters. However, after seeing how she had treated Perseus after everything he had done, I wasn't sure if I could really trust her. She was the goddess of wisdom, so I knew blackmail wouldn't be as effective against her; she would be prepared for it and try to use it against me instead. This was going to be a really difficult conversation.

I sighed as I knocked on the door of her temple and waited for her to answer it. When she did, she smiled at me and invited me inside.

She offered me a seat, but when I didn't take it and she saw my face, she got a serious look on her face. "What is it Artemis? What's wrong?"

The concern in her voice was real, but I knew it wouldn't last once I responded. I sighed and told her, "You are what's wrong. I know what you did to Perseus. I know why he can't stay at camp anymore. I have offered him a chance to travel with the hunt. Father has agreed to my request. I am simply here to tell you that if you hurt any of my hunters in any way shape or form, you will have a full-blown war on your hands. I am not as nice as Perseus. The only reason you are not currently at war is because you have taken advantage of his fatal flaw and he doesn't want to be the cause of a war. I will not suffer from such weakness."

I stared her in the eye for my entire speech and watched as she slowly put up her defenses and began thinking of some way to get me onto her side. After a few minutes she spoke, "You do not scare me sister. I know how much father cares about you and if you cause me problems, I will simply convince father to kick Perseus out of the hunt again. It won't be hard to do. I will let him know how hard Perseus is trying to seduce you and he will be gone. As for a war, if you started a war, you would lose it. Father would take my side immediately and with the king of the gods on my side, many of the other gods would join with me as well. You would have no one and would lose miserably. Nice try, but your threats don't scare me."

I glared at her, "How little you understand sister. Perseus has all of the minor gods on his side. He would also have Poseidon and Hades. Two of the big three. Add my brother and myself to that as well as Hermes and Hestia and most of the immortals would be joining our side. If we then explained to the demigods about how you manipulated their greatest hero and ruined his life, even your own children would begin joining our side."

"You are counting on Perseus telling everyone his story. You know he wouldn't do that to help start a war. Your plan would never work."

"No, Athena, you are wrong there. I would use his story to start the war. His story would only be used to bring people to our side of the war that I would start if you hurt any of my hunters. It would not be _wise _for you to do anything to my hunters or myself. If you don't wish to be the cause of the next great war, then I suggest you stop causing problems for Perseus and move on. All he did was tell you truth and you had the nerve to hurt him for it. This conversation is over Athena. I would recommend you think very hard before doing anything rash and stupid."

I then walked out of her temple before she could respond. I hated fighting with my sister, but she really hadn't left me much of a choice. Hopefully she would be smart and not try to start a war. I was feeling pretty miserable, so I teleported myself back to the hunter camp to see how everyone was doing and hopefully cheer up a little.

Percy POV

After Artemis left I groaned. Thalia turned to look at me and laughed, "Well Percy, it appears you are going to be joining the hunt. Good luck with that and hopefully the girls don't kill you too soon."

"Yeah yeah Thalia. I know. The hunt hates men, or boys, or whatever you want to call me. Artemis is giving me no choice but to join though, hopefully that keeps them from killing me."

She grinned at me, "I wouldn't count on it. They may just think that you are trying to put the moves on Artemis instead of them, making it even worse for you."

I paled and Thalia laughed even more. "Fine," I said, "if I have to join anyways, can I at least go back to my campsite and gather my things so I can move into the hunter camp?"

She looked at me and seemed to contemplate what to do, "Fine, but I'm coming with you and you have to promise you won't run away again. Hunting you down was hard enough the first time."

I grinned at her, "Yeah, the only reason you found me was because I stayed in one place for too long. Lady Hestia warned me that I was close to being found so I had been planning on leaving tomorrow. Unfortunately you found me today. As for me leaving, I won't do it. Or really, I can't do it. If I leave this time, all the gods will turn on me. I left camp because it wasn't safe for the campers due to Dionysus's hatred of the camp. Here with the hunt, Artemis will actually protect her hunters meaning that I can stay here safely without putting people at risk. If I were to leave anyways, I would be being selfish and turn the few gods who actually like me against me. As soon as Artemis made the offer, I had no choice but to accept."

Thalia looked at me, "Wow Kelp Head, you said something smart. I don't know what you have been doing on your own these last few months, but it seems to have increased your intelligence."

"Yeah, well, being alone for such a long time I had plenty of time to think. With no one to talk to and nothing exciting to do, I was left to my own thoughts in my head. I'm pretty sure that that combined with my meditating really helped me to think a little before doing stupid things. Regardless, lets head to my campsite to get my things and then you can introduce me to my new family."

Thalia walked out of the tent and I followed her. Outside, there was no one around. I felt around with my senses and located the hunters a little ways to my right. They seemed to be doing nothing, so I figured they were talking. I then looked at Thalia and sprinted to my left towards my campsite.

I laughed as Thalia yelled after me and then tried to catch up with me. After several minutes of sprinting, I reached my old campsite and stopped. A few seconds later Thalia stopped next to me, panting and cursing under her breathe.

She glared at me, "What was that for Kelp Head? I told you no running away."

I laughed, "You look a little winded Thalia. Don't tell me that is the limit of your endurance, I mean, that was barely I warm-up for me. Besides, I told you I wasn't going to run away. Anyways, welcome to my old home."

Thalia finally seemed to realize that she wasn't in just a random part of the forest anymore and turned around to take in my humble campsite. She then looked at me and said, "This is all you have? This has to be the most boring thing ever. You have a tent covered by a tarp and a small campfire pit. And I'm guessing that patch of ice is the meat cooler you were telling us you had made. I thought you were joking about only training and meditating all day. How did you not die of boredom here?"

I laughed, "Well, training actually kept me pretty busy. I'm not sure if you noticed, but I learned how to fire a bow accurately and let me just tell you, that took a LOT of work. Also, my waterpower's have grown quite a bit as well, but I'm going to keep those a secret for now. I will however tell you that I can sense any source of water that is within several miles of myself if I try hard enough."

Thalia looked at me, probably trying to understand what I meant by that. "You mean that no one can sneak up on you because you can sense them coming due to the water in their body? Also, congrats on getting good with a bow, after everything I heard about your ability to shoot, it really is quite the accomplishment."

"Thanks. As for the water sensing, I suppose I could do that if I wanted to. That might help keep me safe from the hunters. Anyways, what all do I need to bring with me? I have a few souvenirs I want to bring, but do I need my tent or tarp or anything?"

"You don't need the tent, but if you want to use it instead of one of our tents then feel tree to bring it. Same goes for the tarp, although we don't have any because Artemis can prevent it from raining on our camp. If you end up staying outside of the camp in order to avoid the hunters though, you might want it. What souvenirs do you have that you want to bring back to camp with you?"

I went into my tent and came out with deer antlers and a skull. "These are from my first kill. I keep them around for good luck. Kind of morbid with the skull and all, but it seems wrong to just toss it. Also, I kept the skin and use it as a floor for my tent. So I will be bringing that as well."

Thalia looked at me funny, "I suppose you can bring that stuff. The deer skull seems a little creepy, but whatever floats your boat waterboy. Anyways, pack up your stuff so we can get back to the hunters. If Artemis comes back and finds us both missing we'll get in trouble and an angry Artemis is not fun."

I nodded and then packed my stuff as fast as I could. I decided to take my tent because I had grown rather fond of it as well as the tarp in case I ended up staying outside of the hunter camp. I got everything into my pack and then walked with Thalia back to the hunter camp.

When we showed up, the hunters were in the middle of dinner and Artemis still wasn't back yet. I hoped she wouldn't get in trouble for helping me. When we got to where they were eating, they all stopped and looked at us. One of the only hunters I knew the name of spoke up, "Welcome back Thalia. I heard you were the first back from the hunt, but instead of bringing the rabbit you brought the boy we had been hunting. Congratulations."

Phoebe then turned to me. I only knew her name because I remembered the Stoll's pranking her the winter Annabeth was kidnapped, preventing her from going on the quest and opening a spot for me to go. She hated boys even more because of that. She glared at me and spoke, "Hello, _boy._ It is rare to have a boy in the hunter camp who has not been turned into an animal. Now, since you have been found, kindly return to that special camp of yours and leave us in peace."

I sighed, this was going worse than I had anticipated. After Phoebe's speech, all of the other hunters glared at me and I was tempted to run back into the wilderness again. I knew though, that that wouldn't work and would serve only to anger the gods even more. Before I could respond though, a silver flash illuminated the area and Lady Artemis appeared.

She took a look around and saw all the hunters glaring at me and sighed, "Now now girls, no need to glare at Perseus. In fact, it would be best if you tried to get along with him, as he will be joining the hunt now."

Immediately the hunters began protesting, saying that I was a boy and not to be trusted. They said that no boy was allowed to join the hunt and I would end up being a terrible guy, just like all the other boys in the world. I really wanted to protest and tell them off, but I knew that would just get them to hate me even more. I also knew that most of them had good reason to hate boys and their protests were more a show of the bad experiences they had had in the past and not how they actually felt about me.

Once they all calmed down, Phoebe spoke up, "My Lady, what do you mean he is joining the hunt? He is a male and as we all know, boys are terrible and mistreat women and are not good people. Why would you allow him to join?"

Artemis sighed before speaking, "Phoebe, you are right. Perseus is a male and most boys to tend to be terrible people. Perseus however has shown himself to be a decent male who respects his peers. Also, he cannot live at camp anymore due to certain circumstances we do not need to get into. I'm not saying you have to like him and be nice to him, but you should at least give him a chance. If he proves himself to be like a typical boy, I will kick him out of the hunt immediately." She then turned to me, "Perseus, after dinner we will have to have a small discussion about your place among the hunt. For now, eat dinner and set up your stuff."

I bowed my head and then went and got myself some food. I sat down at the edge of the little dining area to try and avoid the many glares I was receiving. I ate quickly and then left to go set up my campsite. Lady Artemis followed me and I could feel the glares of the hunters burning into the back of my head.

When I got to the edge of the camp, Artemis spoke, "Where are you going? You are staying with the hunt now."

I sighed, "You saw all the glares I was getting from the hunters, there is no way it would be safe for me to stay in the camp. I am going to set up my tent and stuff a quarter mile away so that the hunters won't bother me. Hopefully. Anyways, what did you want to talk to me about?"

"We need to have a conversation about your place in the hunt. As you know, you can't make the same oath as the hunters because you are a boy. What my father agreed to was you swearing fealty to me. That would mean you have to obey me, but that was already a given as my hunters have to do that as well."

"Fine," I said, "I swear fealty to Lady Artemis, goddess of the hunt. Speaking of your trip to Olympus, how was it? Did you get Aphrodite to promise to leave me alone?"

"Yes, I got her to swear it on the Styx. I also made sure Athena knows better than to mess with my hunters. Hestia seemed to approve of you joining as well. I only told those four about finding you and joining the hunt. Now that they know, the others will find out as well and you may be visited by some of them wanting answers. I will leave that for you to deal with, especially your father. He will probably insist upon learning about what happened to you. Anyways, set up your camp and good luck with the hunt. Hopefully the hunters warm up to you before they kill you."

Artemis then walked back to the hunter camp and I went about setting up my camp. It didn't take as long to set up this time, so after half an hour my campsite was ready. I sat down in front of my tent and meditated.

After some time had passed, I felt a body of water moving towards me. I focused on it and sensed that it was a person. They were moving silently, but I could see them coming, even with my eyes closed. As soon as they got to the edge of the tarp I had set up, I opened my eyes and stared at the hunter. "Hello Phoebe," I said. "What brings you to my humble campsite?"

She jumped a little when I opened my eyes and spoke, but she recovered quickly. "Jackson," she spat, "just because Lady Artemis is giving you a chance to be in the hunt doesn't mean we all agree with it. We know how you boys are and we don't trust you. I recommend you watch yourself, because if you step one foot out of line I will personally kill you."

I smiled at her, "okay Phoebe, sounds like a plan. Now, if you don't mind, I would like to get back to my meditation." I then closed my eyes and went back to focusing on my water senses.

I could feel her frustration at my response and hoped she wouldn't do anything. I didn't need to get in a fight minutes after I joined the hunt. Unfortunately, my response had rubbed her the wrong way and I saw her raise her bow and nock an arrow. She let it fly and I could feel the water in the air part around the arrow. Just before the arrow reached me, I reached out with my hand and grabbed it.

Keeping my eyes closed, I tossed the arrow back to her. "Better luck next time. I would rather not start a fight, but if you insist upon attacking me I will defend myself. I am sorry if I angered you, that was not my intention. I only want peace, I have had enough violence and fighting for one lifetime."

I felt Phoebe leave my campsite and I went back to my meditation. I hoped that after that the hunters would leave me alone, but like I normally was, I was wrong.

**Well, that is the chapter. **

**That was a fun one to write. The next one should be up in a couple of days.**

**Thanks for all the reviews and stuff, they are rather nice.**

**Now that Percy has joined the hunt, we can learn about his experiences with it. There will be several chapters of that before the hunt visits camp. **

**On a different note, poor Ares. I never really liked him, but still, getting an arrow to the soft spot on the bottom of the chin straight up into his mouth. That probably really hurt.**

**The coming chapters won't just be about Percy; there will also be some stuff about how other people learn about where he is and their reactions to it. If you want specific POV's, let me know and I will do my best to write it.**

**Like always, if you have anything to say to me, whether it's about this story or not, let me know in a review or PM. I love hearing from my readers.**

**Well, that's it for this chapter, so until the next one, don't drink and drive, don't do hard drugs, and stay out of trouble. At least the bad kind anyways.**


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

**Aphrodite. Since I have gotten several messages regarding her birth, allow me to clarify and expand upon why I claimed her to be a sister to Artemis. While it is true that many myths claim she was born of the blood of Ouronus when he was castrated, that is not the only myth regarding her origin. Another lesser-known myth claims that she is a daughter of Zeus and Dione. Depending on which myth you are using for the story, you can her have her be a half-sister to Artemis or be of an older generation that Zeus. **

**When I write my stories, I don't always use the most commonly believed myths to do so. I do, however, do fact-checking to make sure I am not publishing blatant lies regarding Greek mythology. Hopefully the use of some lesser-known myths doesn't bother you.**

**Now, on with the story.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own PJO or the related works.**

Percy POV

I woke up early. It was still dark out, but I had sensed something approaching my campsite. Ever since I had worked on my water sensing, I have been trying to use it in my sleep to catch any monsters that might try to sneak up on my. I had never had a chance to notice if it worked or not, but this time when I woke up, I knew why. I used my senses to look around and saw three humans making their way towards me. I sighed; the hunters were back planning to do something bad to me no doubt.

I quietly got out of my sleeping bag and tent, taking a seat directly in front of it. Once the hunters were close enough, I spoke. "Good morning ladies, is there something you need or is this just a social visit?"

I felt them stop moving, but none of them made to respond to my question. I sighed, "Well, if you have nothing to say, would you kindly let me get back to my sleep? I am rather tired and would like to rest."

Once again I got no response, but the hunters did retreat back towards their camp. I looked at the sky and noted that there were still several hours until sunrise. I wondered what the hunters had been planning to do, but since they weren't rather fond of me, I figured it was best if I didn't know. Hopefully my awareness of them sneaking up on me would prevent any future attempts at it.

I tried going back to sleep, but for better or worse I was awake now. Sighing, I got up and dressed. Since it was still incredibly early in the morning, I had no reason to stick around. I reached out with my senses and then went for a run. When I returned, I found that someone had gone through all of my stuff.

I sighed, nothing was taken, but it was rather annoying knowing that my personal belongings were not being treated the way they should be. I hadn't been too keen on the idea of joining the hunt and so far, the hunters were treating me exactly how I had expected them to. They didn't like me and were going out of their way to cause me problems.

After making sure all my stuff was in order, I picked up my bow and arrows and headed back outside. Pulling water out of the ground and air, I made an ice target several hundred meters away from me. For the next hour, I focused solely on archery to try and keep my mind off of my new problems.

From behind me, a voice spoke, "Well Perseus, you seem to be rather skilled at archery. I always heard that you were the worst shot in the world. Regardless, we can't have you using mortal weapons anymore, so after breakfast come and get one of our hunters bows."

I turned and bowed, "Good morning Lady Artemis, I didn't notice you approach. When it comes to archery, I did suck, but after spending enough time practicing, even I was able to improve. Also, I will make sure to grab a hunters bow. Thank you."

She gave me a small smile, "You didn't notice me approaching? From what my hunters said, you noticed them approaching you at 3:00 in the morning. How did you manage to not notice me?"

"Well, at this point in time, I was rather focused on archery and archery alone. I was trying to ignore everything else so I wasn't paying attention to my senses as much as I normally do. As thankful as I am for being given a new home, the hunters really don't like me and don't seem to appreciate personal boundaries."

For a second, Artemis appeared angry about what I said. She quickly recovered and spoke, "What do you mean they don't respect personal boundaries?"

"Well, after they so rudely woke me up this morning, I couldn't get back to sleep so I went for a little run. When I came back several hours later, I found that all of my stuff had been gone through. Since you and your hunters are the only ones around, I came to the conclusion that one or more of your hunters went through all of my stuff without my permission. I understand that they don't like me, but I will not tolerate this sort of behavior."

Artemis sighed, "They really don't know what to think of you. All the hunters know what you have done for the world and whether they show it or not, they do have some respect for you. At the same time, almost all of them have been wronged by boys in some way or another during their lives. I think that they want to like you, but they are scared that you will turn out to be no different from any other males they have come across. Right now, they are trying to find fault in you before they become attached in order to save them from potential betrayal."

"I understand that, and I don't want to cause any problems, but I do have boundaries that they shouldn't cross. I will try my hardest to not cause trouble, but if they push me, I won't just sit back and take it."

Artemis nodded her head, "I suppose that makes sense. I will have a talk with them about boundaries and personal space and all that. Hopefully there won't be any problems in the future."

I smiled at her, "Thanks. For everything. I know how much trouble you could get yourself in for taking me in and trying to provide me a home. It would have been easy to send me back to camp, regardless of he dangers. Also, I hope you didn't make an enemy of Athena because of me; she isn't really the kind of enemy you want to have."

"Athena is no longer your concern," she said. "I talked with her and explained to her what would happen if she hurt any of my hunters. Unlike you, I have no qualms about starting a war. Now, you should head on over to the main camp and get some breakfast. We are heading out in two hours."

I looked at her, "Where are we going?"

"Well, I am the goddess of the hunt. Now that the hunt for you has been completed, I have other targets to hunt. While I was on Olympus yesterday, I received reports of monster gatherings in the eastern Oregon deserts."

With that, she flashed away, probably to the main camp. I sighed and cleaned myself up before jogging over myself. When I arrived in the clearing where the hunters were eating, I took a look around. All of the hunters were there and as soon as they noticed me, they began glaring at me. After several seconds of that, they went back to their food.

I walked over to where the food was being served and found myself being glared at once again. The hunter who was serving glared at me for a little while before relenting and handing me a bowl of oatmeal. Not my favorite food, but I was not going to complain, not even I was that stupid.

I walked over to the edge of the clearing to eat. I sat on the ground and was just starting to eat when I noticed someone sit down next to me. I looked over and saw Thalia looking at me.

"Hey Percy. You're looking good this morning. Sleep well?" She asked me. I could see from her amusement that she knew I had been woken up early.

I glared at her, "No I didn't, and if your hunters don't learn to respect my boundaries, they will regret it."

Thalia was now glaring at me, "What is your problem Percy? You should consider yourself lucky you aren't dead yet. The hunters hate boys because in their experience boys have done terrible things. Until they get used to you, they are going to hate you."

"I'm sorry," I sighed, "it's just, if I was judged for being myself and not by the actions of others, my life would be great right now. I would be in a happy relationship and have a shot at a happily ever after. Instead, grudges were passed onto me and I wound up here. I'm sick of it and I don't want it to happen any more."

"Don't worry Percy, I will talk to the hunters and try to get them to ease up a little and get to know you. Until that happens though, you are going to be judged by the actions of others and there isn't anything that can be done about it. I will tell you, however, that the hunters will get over their dislike of you, unlike a certain goddess who never could. Just give it time."

I smiled, "Thanks Thalia. I will try my hardest not to cause any trouble, but if trouble finds me, I will not just ignore it."

"Sure you won't. Well, if you do end up fighting the other hunters, good luck. You would be outnumbered by a lot and no matter how much stronger you are now, you would probably lose. Although I am curious about your powers now. How did you know that there were three hunters approaching your tent this morning? That really freaked them out."

I grinned at her as I responded, "Well, I'm glad I freaked them out, hopefully it keeps them away from me in the future. As for how I did it, that is a secret I shall not divulge unless I can trust all of the hunters. Until that happens, I will keep my powers secret for my own safety. Now, you should probably get back to the hunters, they seem to be rather upset about their lieutenant spending so much time with me. As much as I like talking to you, if a power struggle breaks out because you hang out with me, I would feel pretty bad."

Thalia sighed, "None of them could beat me in a fight if a power struggle did break out, but you are right; I shouldn't spend too much time around you if I want to avoid conflict. Hopefully they warm up to you soon so this isn't a problem anymore." She then got up and walked over to the other hunters.

I finished my breakfast and went to drop off my bowl. When I was about to walk away, one of the hunters stopped me. "Where do you think you are going, boy?" she sneered. "You need to earn your place here, so you are on cleanup duty. Go wash all of the dishes and report back to me."

_Great, _I thought, _I have no intention of doing that, but how do I say that without causing problems?_

I looked at her. She looked to be about 13, although I had no clue how old she really was. She had shoulder length blonde hair with green eyes. The look in her eyes told me she was a leader and people listened to her orders. I sighed, "I would love to help out with dishes now, but I have already been given a task to complete following breakfast. Maybe I can clean up after lunch or dinner. For now though, can you point me towards the armory so I can get a bow?"

She glared at me before finally giving in and giving me directions to the armory tent. Before I walked away, I spoke up, "Thanks. Also, what's your name? I feel incredibly uncomfortable not knowing anyone here."

The green eyed girl looked at me for several seconds before answering, "I'm Lacey. Now, get out of my site before I change my mind about allowing you to skip dishwashing duty."

I smiled at her and walked off. When I arrived at the armory tent, there was no one there. I wasn't sure what exactly I was supposed to do, but I walked in and looked around. There were racks of quivers filled with silver arrows as well as tables of hunting knives and bows. There were different sizes of weapons for different sizes of people. The weapons were all beautiful to look at and appeared to be just as deadly.

Since I was supposed to get a bow, I walked over to the table covered in them. There were about 20 of them of different sizes. I had no clue what to do, so I just looked at them for a while. They were silver and sleek. They didn't appear to be as modern as the bow I had been using, but design made the bow seem much more dangerous than my mortal bow.

From behind me, I heard someone speak, "What are you doing here, boy?" I turned to look and saw a large burly girl standing at the entrance to the tent. She was obviously strong and had shoulder length dark brown hair. Her eyes were brown and dangerous.

I smiled at her, "Sorry, Lady Artemis told me to pick up a hunters bow after breakfast so I came here to get one. Can you help me here? I have no clue how to pick out a bow for myself."

"Fine, boy." She was glaring at me, but at the thought of picking out a weapon, she seemed to calm down a little. "My name is Megan and I am a daughter of Ares. I am in charge of the armory. Since you are older and taller than all of us, you will need a larger bow. Go to the far end of the table and find one that feels comfortable for you, that is all there is to it."

"Thanks," I said. I walked to the end of the table and selected the largest bow on it. I ran my hands over the wood and felt the grip. I drew it back to feel how it felt and noticed how nice this bow felt in my hands. I was surprised by it because I had grown to like my mortal bow so much, yet this one felt so much more natural to me. I turned to look at Megan and saw her watching me carefully. "How do you make these bows? Wood isn't naturally silver is it?"

She looked at me and actually smiled. "Curious about our methods? I suppose I can tell you. The cypress tree is sacred to Lady Artemis. She has a forest sanctuary in which silver cypress trees grow. The location is a secret, but the trees are imbued with magic and provide the wood for our bows. No other bows come close to the quality of our bows.

"The silver for our hunting knives is mined from a mountain within her sanctuary as well. It is a truly amazing place that I wish to someday visit, but Artemis only takes you to her sanctuary if you survive in the hunt for 1000 years."

I smiled at her, "Well, I'm sure you will get to visit it someday. Thanks for the information as well. Why don't you seem to hate me as much as the other hunters? I don't think any of them would have given me any information or helped me select a bow."

She seemed to consider this, "Well, I don't like you. You are a boy after all. I do however have some respect for you. You are clearly powerful and as a daughter of Ares, I respect strength. You haven't backed down from the hunters either. Thalia and Artemis both like you, so there is a chance that you might prove yourself to be decent. For now though, all of the hunters are watching you closely, waiting for you to slip up."

"You're a daughter of Ares? Shouldn't you hate me for beating your father?" I asked her.

She laughed, "No no, not at all. I will be the first to say that my father is a scumbag. I mean, he passed on his love of war and fighting and weapons to me, which is nice, but the rest of his traits are terrible. I'm glad someone had the nerve to put him in his place, even if it was another boy."

I smiled, "Well, I'm glad to be of service. Anyways, I like this bow, so do I just take it?"

"Yeah, if you want that bow then take it. I will make note of it and make sure we get another one of that size to replace it in the armory. Also, grab a quiver of arrows off the wall. As you may or may not know, the bow and quiver are enchanted to appear and disappear as you wish. The quiver holds thirty arrows. It is your responsibility to take care of the equipment. For every ten replacement arrows you need, you will be assigned extra chores around camp. Understand?"

"Yeah, I get it. Is there any equipment for sharpening arrows and taking care of the bow?"

"Yeah, we got equipment for that. As you learn your way around the camp you will find what you need. Now, do you want hunting knives as well, or are you going to stick with your sword for close combat?"

I reached into my pocket and grabbed a hold of Riptide. "I think I will just stick with my sword. It was my first weapon and is my favorite weapon, I don't have any need to switch to hunting knives."

Megan looked at me and nodded, "Okay, well then if that is all, get out of my armory. I have to make sure everything is in place and pack it up so we can head off on the hunt."

"Crap! I completely forgot we were leaving soon. Okay, thanks for everything Megan, I have to go pack up my stuff before we leave. Bye." With that, I hurried out of the armory tent and headed back to my campsite.

An hour later, I walked back to the hunter camp and found it had been completely packed up and the hunters were about ready to head out. I felt like a fool since I was using mostly mortal equipment and had to carry it with me while the hunt was using magic equipment that folded up into small little devices and could be carried around in their pockets.

I could tell that the hunters were all laughing at me, but I just ignored it. Artemis was at the front of the group and after several minutes led is out of the clearing and through the forest. The travelling was boring. I was at a point where I could travel over 100 miles a day. The hunt only made about 60 miles the first day before they stopped to set up camp again and rest for the night. Once again, I set my stuff up about a quarter mile away from the rest of the hunters. This time however, I set up a trap around my tent to keep the hunters away.

I dug out an underground trench around my tent with my waterpower's. It was about ten feet deep with two feet of water on the bottom. It was also three feet wide to prevent people from stepping over it. There was about three inches of dirt covering the trench being supported by a layer of ice I formed under it. It could support th dirt, but if anyone stepped on it, they would fall through into the water. If I was close by when someone fell in, I could freeze the water and trap them, if I was too far away for that, they would just suffer from embarrassment and try to get away before I found them.

After making sure my trap was good, I took off for a run through the forest to get a little more exercise before dinner. As I ran, I let my senses guide me while I relaxed. It was strange running through a different forest, but at the same time it was a nice change of pace. The layout was different, so I had to focus on my surroundings more. After a few hours, I made my way back to my campsite. When I got close, I felt out with my senses to see if anyone had been crazy enough to approach my campsite.

I sensed no one had fallen into my trap, but I could sense someone was approaching. I hurried back to my tent and waited for the person's arrival. I looked up and saw Thalia. "Hey Thalia, what are you doing here?" I shouted.

She looked up at me, "Well, it's almost dinner time. Since you volunteered to clean up after it this morning, you need to show up eventually."

I smiled at her, "Okay, I will be there in a few minutes. Now, you should stop walking towards me. I have some, ah, defenses set up around my tent to prevent people from getting close to my stuff again." I then walked over to her, making sure to temporarily reinforce the ground as I walked over it.

Thalia looked at me funny, "What did you do? I don't see any traps around here."

I smirked at the lieutenant of the hunters, "Well, if you want to test my traps, then go right ahead and walk to my tent. I dare you to."

"Hmm, maybe later. For now though, it's dinner time." She said. Thalia then turned around and walked back towards the hunter's camp.

I followed her, and as soon as I arrived at the dinner clearing, the hunters all turned to glare at me. I ignored them, got my dinner, and sat down away from everyone else.

As I was starting to eat my dinner, Artemis spoke up, "Well, it likes you all are warming up to Perseus here, you only glared at him for half a minute this time."

I groaned, now they were going to make sure to glare at me longer. I sighed and got back to my dinner. After I finished, I stuck around so I could do my cleaning duty. With my waterpower's, I was able to do the dishwashing with relative ease.

Once I finished, I decided to stick around for a little while. If the hunters were ever going to like me, it wouldn't be because I was never around, that would just make them treat me the way they currently do. After looking around for several minutes, I found everyone seated around a campfire, talking; laughing; and having a good time.

I smiled and looked for a place to sit, but before I could sit down, someone spoke up, "You are not welcome here, boy. Go back to your own camp." I looked towards the voice and saw that it was coming from Phoebe.

I was about to leave, but another voice spoke up, surprisingly, this time to defend me, "Phoebe, whether you like it or not, Perseus is a member of the hunt and is just as welcome here as everyone else." What really surprised me was that it was Artemis defending me.

I smiled at her and spoke, "Thank you Lady Artemis, but I can tell that I am in fact _not _welcome here, so I will be leaving. Maybe some day I will be welcomed, but that day is not today." With that, I turned around and walked away from their campfire and back to the solitude of my campsite.

And so it went. For the next week, we made our way towards Oregon and the monster army that was building there. During the trip, the hunters made it perfectly clear that I was not welcome. They gave up on trying to sneak up on my campsite after a few days and falling into my traps several times. I think the fact that they couldn't harass me as much as they wanted just made them hate me even more. Still, I wasn't about to just let the hunters torture me. Occasionally, I would hear Thalia or Artemis try to defend me, but not even they were having a lot of success getting the other hunters to accept me.

Eventually, we reached the Ochoco forest in eastern Oregon. It was midday and I stretched out my senses as far as I could. About 20 miles ahead, I could sense a large group of monsters. I joined back with the hunters who were a little ways behind me and told Artemis.

She looked at me, "You should really stick with the hunt more, they might like you better if you weren't always disappearing off into the forest and then randomly appearing again."

"Well, I would love to do that, but I am used to travelling over 100 miles a day, so this slower pace is too easy for me. Anyways, I came back to tell you that there is a large group of monsters about 15 miles ahead."

She immediately stopped and the hunters followed suit. Everyone was now staring at me, "How far ahead did run, Perseus?" Artemis asked me.

I smiled sheepishly, "I was only about a mile ahead of you guys. I used my senses and scouted ahead with them. About 15 miles up a large group of monsters is waiting. I counted 50 before turning around and warning you guys. There were more to count, I just figured you would want to know now, not later."

Artemis was giving me a funny look, "How do you do that? No one can sneak up on you because you can sense them coming, and now you are saying you can sense ahead of you for 15 miles. I thought you only had waterpower's, so how are you doing this?"

I sighed, "Well, I had wanted to keep my powers secret until I felt I could trust everyone, but I suppose since that won't happen, I might as well tell you. I can sense any source of water. I can sense the water in people, animals, gods, plants, the air, the ground, everywhere. By focusing on this, I can actually get an image of my surroundings and look ahead of me for about 20 miles if I try my hardest. I can sometimes do this subconsciously in my sleep as well."

Now they were all staring at me. As the seconds ticked by, I was getting even more uncomfortable. Eventually, I couldn't take it anymore, "Fine, I guess that was a surprising thing to learn. Anyways, as I said, there is a large group of monsters 15 miles ahead, what is the plan? Should go meet them today or wait until tomorrow? If we wait until tomorrow, would we be safe tonight since we are so close to them?"

My questions seemed to break the hunters out of their trance and Artemis responded. "If we stay put, the monsters won't sense us here. We can rest up tonight and then eliminate them tomorrow when we are rested and ready. Now, setup camp. Perseus, do not stray too far away, we don't want the monsters to find you and attack us because of it."

I bowed to Artemis, "Your will, Lady Artemis." I then walked a little ways off and set up my campsite.

As Artemis requested, I stayed close by the hunter camp the rest of the day. Every hour or so I would reach out with my senses again to make sure the enemy was still nearby and not approaching. I spent the rest of my time doing sword work. It had been a while since I had trained with Riptide and I didn't want to be out of practice the next day, so I spent several hours practicing on ice dummies I created.

Eventually, night came so I went to sleep. For the first time in a long time, I had a dream.

In my dream, I was in my tent. I got up and walked out of it to see a familiar face. Not a good familiar face though, a rather bad one. The face was covered in scratches and cuts and the man had dark glasses on. He had long black hair and he was wearing a tuxedo.

Prometheus smiled at me, "It's been a while Percy. I am sure you are glad to have won the last titan war, and with your victory I have come to respect you. Now, I wish to warn you about what you face."

I glared at him, "Leave me alone Prometheus, I don't want to hear your words as you try to manipulate me. I won't listen to you."

He gave me a warm smile, "Why Percy, I just wish to help you. The army of monsters you are going to fight tomorrow, they only want you. The army formed with the sole purpose of killing you. During the battle tomorrow, the hunters will be at risk against an enemy that seeks only you."

"Shut up! Leave my dream and let me sleep in peace."

"You should really stop interrupting me, I wasn't finished speaking yet. I only wish to help you. Anyways, you joined the hunters so that you would have a family again and the family wouldn't be in danger because of you. I just wanted to let you know that this army has only formed because of you, so you would be putting your new family at risk if you allowed the hunters to fight the monsters. Would you be able to live with yourself if any of the hunters died because of that?"

I knew he was trying to manipulate me, so I tried to convince myself he was lying, "Why would the army form only to fight me? What makes me different to them than any other half-blood out there? They are not only after me, you are just trying to manipulate me into fighting them alone so that I will loose."

"That's not it at all. I wish to propose another question to you. What makes the hunters any better than Athena? They are placing their prejudices and hatred of others onto you for no reason. Nothing you have done is getting them to change their opinions either. Is it worth it to risk your life for a group of people who hate you as much as Athena does, and for similar reasons as well? What have they ever done for you other than make it clear they want you to go away? Why risk your life for them?"

"I will risk my life for them because they deserve saving. I can tell they don't truly hate me. Also, Thalia is my friend and if she is fighting, I want to fight as well. Now I have a question for you. What are you doing? During the titan war, you said you would only join the side you thought would win. Which side are you on now? You know the monsters don't stand a chance against us, so who are you really working for this time?"

Prometheus grinned, "That, I cannot tell you. Unless you joined us that is. Swear on the Styx to join my side and I will tell you, otherwise, I have said all I will say."

I glared at him, "I would never join you. As much as I may dislike some of the gods, they are still better than the titans or whoever you are working for."

"You say that now, but you don't even know who is on my team. If you knew who they were and what they had planned, you would be more willing to join. Think about it, do you really want to fight for a bunch of gods who don't care for their own children? You have seen how the gods treat the demigods, why fight for them? The gods betrayed you after everything you did for them, is it really worth staying on their side? The hunters are no better than the gods, so why fight for them either? Even if you help them or save them, they will just continue to hate them. If you joined me, you would get respect and the other mortals would be treated well as well. Don't answer me now though, wait until after your battle tomorrow and then tell me who you really want to fight for."

With that, my dream faded into blackness and I slept soundly until the morning.

**Well, I would like to update more often than I do, but I have other things to do. Writing FanFiction is a free time activity for me, so if I have other things to do during that free time, I won't be able to write as quickly. Normally, I have been pretty good about my updates and stuff, but lately, I have had a little less free time and a little more work to do, preventing me from writing as fast as I want to. **

**Also, some rather unfortunate things are taking place in my life right now and will continue to be taking place for the foreseeable future, it shouldn't take too much time away from my writing, but if it is going to become more of a problem, I will let you know.**

**In order to write FanFiction, you need to read books. Normally, reading books is an easily balanceable thing to do. Some books, however, require more intense reading and focus with fewer breaks and pauses. This means that I am planning on reading a book that will take more time and effort than normal meaning less time to write FanFiction. **

**Now, since I have thrown all of that out there, let me reiterate what I said when I first started writing this story, I will update at least one chapter a week as long as I am around to do so. If for some reason I won't be able to do so, I will let you know in advance. No matter how distracted I may get by other things, I owe it to you, my readers, to update consistently and I have no intentions of breaking my good history of updates.**

**So, do you guys have any idea who Prometheus is working for this time? It isn't Kronos or Gaia, but that is all I'm saying.**

**Now, if you have anything to say about the chapter, story, or me, leave me a review or PM me. **

**Thanks for reading and have a fun time doing fun things in fun places.**


	10. I'm back Kinda AN

**AN**

**Well, this is actually important, so please read it. Or don't. If you don't read it though, well, you won't know what I'm trying to say.**

**Hey guy's, I know I promised weekly updates and all that and I then disappeared for the past 4 months or something crazy like that. Sorry about that. That is part of what I'm going to address here.**

**So, the easiest way to say this is that life caught up to me. I was busy writing and suddenly several major things happened that forced me to leave writing for a while. I'd rather not get into that too much, as I try to keep my personal life and issues off the internet. I wish I could have let you guy's know before I just vanished, but alas, I could not. Hopefully you can forgive me, but if you can't, that's your problem, not mine. That might seem mean, but I don't want to get into any ridiculous internet drama with people I don't even know, so if you're pissed at me for leaving like I did, just know I won't respond to your barbs and whatnot.**

**As for my writing, that's the other thing I wish to address here. I will be continuing my writing and my stories. However, when I came back to my stories to continue them, I read them. Needless to say, I was not impressed. Both of my stories I feel hold a lot of potential that I just wasn't reaching before. They both feel rushed, as if I pushed out updates and whatnot before they were truly ready. With a bunch of amazing readers and reviewers like you guy's, I feel bad putting out that quality of work. **

**What I'm getting at is that I'm rewriting my stories. I'm not changing the storylines or anything, just upping the quality and fixing errors I made. My goal is to have a pair of high quality stories for you guy's to enjoy reading. With as awesome as you guys have been, I would feel bad to not put out the highest quality work I can.**

**A timeline for these rewrites I'm mentioning. I can type 15,000 words a day if I really try. Maybe more or less depending on how much time I have, but 15,000 words is what I can do with 8 hours of typing a day. My two stories currently comprise 129,000 words. That means that if I really tried, I could have everything rewritten in a week and a half. Then again, I don't really want to rush things either. Regardless, I should have both stories completely rewritten within a month.**

**Now, for the part where you readers are involved. I want your opinion on things. However, I want a full opinion, so a poll won't work. My question to you guys is this: How should I update my rewritten stories? Do you want me to delete my current stories and post new stories, blank of all reviews and whatnot? Do you want me to replace the chapters in my current stories as I rewrite them? Do you want me to stick with my current stories and update everything at once as soon as I've finished rewriting it all? If you could let me know how you feel about that question in a review or PM, that would be appreciated. **

**Once again, I would like to apologize for disappearing the way I did. I will do my best to have my updated stories up quickly and then continue to update frequently, but I want your guys' opinion on how that should be done before I do it.**

**Thank you all for everything. You guys are all amazing. Peace for now, and hopefully I'll be able to update again soon.**

**-chilledcactus**


	11. My decision

**AN**

**So, I've made my decision on how to update my rewritten stories. I won't just delete what I have written. Yet. My plan is to publish a new version of each of my stories. I will update the chapters as I rewrite them. Once I've caught up with the story I have written so far, I will delete the old version of the story and post new content on the new stories.**

**One of the 'new' stories will be: The Guardians of Earth.**

**The other 'new' story will be: Love for the Loveless (rewritten)**

**I don't know how well this will work, but I'll do my best to make it work. I'd like to apologize, again, for the long delay since my last updates, but life happens. I'll try not to let it happen again, but you never know. You can't plan for everything.**

**Also, I almost have the first chapters of both my stories rewritten, I just need to do a final round of edits and they will be up. I will do everything in my power to have them up before midnight on the west coast of the USA.**


End file.
